COMMENT: What is a property without people in it? Bricks, mortar, glass, steel, a building with no heart. What is a neighbourhood without a crowd? A ghost town. A place with no soul. No one wants to create either of these, but without careful planning, creative design, a resolute focus on quality, strong partnerships and considered collaboration it is easier to end up with one or the other than you may think. And for our industry that is, in no uncertain terms, a failure.
Identity and authenticity are key
Large-scale regeneration in particular is complex, takes time – sometimes decades – and to succeed must create a place that has a sense of identity and authenticity. A place that people want to be, whether that is to live, work or visit.
There is no magic formula for this but at U+I we have been working hard to understand the many drivers that help to create a successful place that puts people at its heart.
The sad truth is that many of the places where we work, whether that be the Old Vinyl Factory in Hayes or Mayfield in Manchester, were once exuberant, vibrant and successful. Post-industrial decline robbed them of their identity and sparked their downward spiral.
Focus on heritage
When we think about these places and how to make them successful again we look to their heritage and try to find ways to work with the grain of the local area. But that does not mean imitating the past. We must find distinctive and authentic ways to bring once great places back to life.
At The Old Vinyl Factory one idea we came up with was to create an innovation hub and put it into the 17-acre site at a very early stage. The Old Vinyl Factory was once home to Thorn EMI’s headquarters – not just EMI Records, but also the Central Research Laboratory, an institution of British engineering innovation that spawned the development of broadcasting systems, stereo, airborne radar and the CAT scanner.
Building on that heritage and reviving the historic name, we re-established the Central Research Laboratory in 2015 as a proof of concept innovation hub for start-ups within the tech, digital, engineering and ‘maker’ sectors. The aim was to create a hub of economic activity that would serve as a magnet for other occupiers. And it worked. Since opening, the Central Research Lab has supported more than 100 businesses, including 25 new start-ups, with more than 60 full-time jobs created and over £5m in investment raised.
So where EMI once drove world-leading innovation we have now supported modern businesses that are at the leading edge of the new economy, contributing millions of pounds to the local area. Importantly, the lab has also attracted other office occupiers, generated footfall and helped bring in retail and food and beverage operators.
Such has been the success of the Central Research Lab that we now want to expand the model. That’s why this month we have supported the launch of Plus X, a new innovation business that will build on the experience of the lab and create a network of innovation hubs with the aim of supporting entrepreneurs, start-ups and scale-ups catalysing local economic activity within large-scale brownfield developments.
Plus X will launch its first innovation hub at our Preston Barracks development in January next year, one of Brighton’s largest ever regeneration schemes. Next will be The Old Vinyl Factory – where the Central Research Lab will expand next year into the Powerhouse Building and become the second Plus X – and we are exploring opportunities to put Plus X facilities in our schemes in Manchester, Greenwich, Birmingham and Harwell.
The business, in which U+I has a 50% stake, is aimed at creating a hub of economic activity within a development, attracting further occupiers, sparking and accelerating the virtuous circle of business activity essential to the success of large-scale regeneration schemes that can take many years or even decades to complete. Exactly like the Central Research Lab.
Generating societal value
A study by economic consultant Real Worth, has forecast the societal value to be generated by six new Plus X hubs is just over £564m over a five-year period, equating to around £112m a year. This means that for every £1 invested in a Plus X, £5.51 of societal value is generated for stakeholders.
The study also compares the economic and social benefits of a Plus X to other occupier models, including a traditional office tenant and a conventional co-working space provider. It finds a Plus X creates as much as 160 times more social and economic value as that of a traditional office letting, and 16 times more value than of a mainstream co-working provider.
For U+I, our support for Plus X underlines our commitment to delivering large-scale regeneration projects that are distinctive, local, authentic and genuinely transformational. Working with enterprising local authorities we now want to create a localised national network of innovation hubs that will not only transform once vibrant industrial areas but support a new generation of innovators and entrepreneurs to remake the UK’s economy.
Richard Upton is chief development officer at U+I
