It won’t have escaped your notice that some pretty big changes are taking place around Pilgrim Street at the moment. What’s been a bit of an unloved part of the city is going through a substantial process of regeneration. The three blocks which make up the eastern side of the street are slowly coming back to life. The upshot of the development work is a massive increase in footfall in the city centre, which will greatly benefit retail and night-time economies.
So, we wanted to get the lowdown on what’s happening in the area, and take a peek behind the hoardings and building work to give you a flavour of what’s coming up. We chatted with Ian Crow, project director at the Newcastle-founded international design practice, Ryder Architecture, who has worked on the project for the best part of ten years!
Ryder was appointed in 2013 by the city council to lead a masterplanning exercise for the Pilgrim Street regeneration area. After engaging with the landowner – the site is owned by the Reuben Brothers – the team prepared a brief for the area and began a phased sequence of development.
The biggest development taking place right now is the construction of Bank House, at the southern end of Pilgrim Street. “There was a big demand on the market for high quality grade A office buildings,” Ian explains. “The site, on the axis of the Tyne Bridge on the approach into the city, provides a great opportunity to make a statement about Newcastle, being open for business and a vibrant and investable city.”
The plans were approved around four years ago, and the 12 floors – with each floor at 10,000 sq ft – are aimed at high end businesses. “It will be the best office space in the city, aiming to attract the best businesses in the corporate and commercial sector, but also bring new entrants into the city too. The real benefit is to get some new businesses into the city, to attract new footfall.”
International legal business DAC Beachcroft have already signed up for the first two floors, with more tenants in the offing soon.
Sitting adjacent to Grainger Town and surrounded by lots of listed buildings, including Alderman Fenwick’s House, meant there were significant challenges around developing the site which Ryder approached with due reverence. “There was a long conversation around how best to balance something that’s prominent and punchy as a city gateway building, against the setting of a conservation area.”
The southern end of Pilgrim Street, including Worswick Chambers and the sites around it, have been in disrepair for some time. Ryder came up with a scheme to incorporate the old buildings into a new courtyard leisure development, which will drive footfall further down the bottom end of the street to enjoy an enticing mix of food and retail options.
“The southern part of the street has workspace for around 8,000 people, so the critical thing in the design was to provide public space, amenity and quality – all the things you want to attract people to work there.” Ian explains further. “The whole development is based around a big public space similar in scale to Old Eldon Square – a similar piece of green infrastructure in the city for people to work around. Also, as part of Bank House the council secured the redevelopment of the cycle, pavements and road ways between 55 Degrees North and the rest of the city, hoping to drive footfall back into the city.”
The central part of the site, which currently houses the old fire and police station and magistrates court will see an impressive transformation thanks to new tenants Bespoke Hotels (who operate the similarly impressive Hotel Gotham in Manchester). A boutique hotel is planned for the site which is aimed at the weekend leisure market and bringing people looking for shopping, dining and nightlife into the city. “In the new year we hope to see a contractor appointed and works coming on pretty quickly. The building has public space in front of it – it’s set back from the street and will provide a feel similar to what we have outside the Theatre Royal, with bars and restaurants breaking out onto the street. It will be an exciting place to be in, and that’s been a key driver for us.”
Ian admits that they struggled with the northern part of the street, after a series of retail development ideas fell through and the market (not to mention the onset of Covid) worked against them. But at the beginning of the pandemic HMRC began looking for a new site to move from their current Benton address. Ian explains that the prospect of a city centre location for an organisation like HMRC is invaluable. “They’re looking to invest in the city centre economy and make their business more attractive to staff in the long term. Our proposal demonstrated we were the best connected and most viable site to meet their needs. The development secured their tenancy just over a year ago.”
Right now there’s a lot of enabling works going on, including demolition, groundworks, piling, setting the foundations and the like. The building work will continue until 2025 when it’ll be handed over to HMRC who will fit it out ready for their staff to arrive in 2026.
It’s a huge site, taking over most of the city block, and it’s come with significant challenges too, as Ian explains: “The most striking bit of it, I think, is the façade retention on Carliol House. As we went through the options on the site we were keen to retain as much of the listed building as possible. The fundamental fact of it is that the front of the building is very high quality but the back part is in serious disrepair. We worked hard to retain the facade and create an atrium behind it, so that the new floor plates could respond to the old façade. It’s quite sensitively done, but to achieve this you need to prop up the front of the building, take the back off and support it back against a new structure. The contractor is currently installing the temporary support, leading to the short term closure of two streets – it’s visually quite dramatic!” By mid-point next year the frame for the building will be up and it’ll be possible to see the scale of the development.
One of the most impressive things about the development will be the amount of people it’ll attract into the city. “It brings 9,000 people into the city centre who will use the city’s facilities, shopping and dining and hopefully drive a recovery through the city centre retail economy – I think that’s a really important thing for the city,” Ian enthuses. He's also excited by the catalyst for change that the development brings with it. “There’s lots of pros and cons of any big development like this, but driving change through a city centre economy is a hugely positive thing for Newcastle.”
So, within the next three years you can expect a pretty big change in the Pilgrim Street area. “By April next year Bank House will be open, you’re likely to see construction work on the Fire Station and Worswick Chambers and the shape of the Pilgrim’s Quarter building will be clear for all to see. By 2025, you’ll have a finished building on Pilgrim’s Quarter and significant new footfall into the city centre the following year. If you walk down the street in two or three years time you’ll have a complete transformation of that part of the city – the work is already starting to have an impact.”
We’ll keep you up to speed with the developments in the area over the next couple of years, so stay tuned to our website for more updates on what promises to be a significant benefit for the city!
