£1.5m Southport ‘enterprise arcade’ plans blow as key tenant pulls out

Plans for an historic Southport building to be transformed into a modern hub for start-up businesses has been dealt a blow after a key tenant pulled out of the scheme.

Baltic Creative was due to be an anchor tenant in the £1.5m Crown Buildings plan which is largely being funded through the Government’s Town Deal. However, it has now dropped out of the scheme.

Details of the development were shared at a Sefton Council cabinet meeting this week where it was heard Sefton Council still intends to pursue the plan. The enterprise arcade project involves transforming one of Southport’s oldest buildings into a “purpose built workspace for start-up businesses”.

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The report states the scheme will “reimagine Southport’s Crown Buildings, linked to the Atkinson Arts Centre by way of the ground floor retail units in the Grade II listed Bank Building and alongside the adjacent Cambridge Walks shopping arcade”, the ECHO reports. It says the refurbishment will create a total “collaboration space” and a large office for an anchor tenant, with two floors for office workspaces for small to medium size businesses totalling 890 sqm.

Work has yet to begin on the scheme with the tendering process currently “underway” and the council intending work to start in the autumn, with the centre due to open in summer 2024. According to the cabinet report, the council has now decided to move away from their original plans to have a key anchor tenant with a “head leasehold” and management responsibility for the building after Baltic Creative decided to pull out.

The report states: “The procurement exercise to secure the ‘anchor tenant’ was concluded last summer with Baltic Creative being identified as the preferred tenant and project operator. However, the progression of this alternative route to an operating model has been mutually agreed with Baltic Creative, and discussions on this project with them has been concluded.”

As a result the report states that the council is now proposing to run the arcade in-house after feedback that the space was “not a viable business opportunity for the larger known managed workspace operators.”

The council said however that it didn’t have the in-house capacity to “foster and curate building a digital economy eco-system” so is now proposing a similar model that being used at Southport market, where the council retains management of the building but there is an anchor tenants “with additional responsibilities.”

According to the report, there has been interest expressed by “crea-tech industry specialists” with the report stating the council is not expecting to have to subsidise the centre once it opens. The report, which was agreed by the cabinet, also details an additional £240k required for works on the Crown Buildings which does not fall within the Town Deal funding to deal with “backlog maintenance works” at the buildings to enable the project to proceed.

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