Plymouth Civic Centre's awesome transformation is about to begin

A design team is to be paid £2.6m

Plymouth City Council is to pay a team of designers £2.6m to carry out preparatory work at the derelict Civic Centre before it is turned into luxury flats and a college campus. The council will employ a team of specialists to undertake detailed technical surveys and design work for the 14-storey skyscraper.

Contractors are expected to be on site at the end of next month to complete an internal strip out. This is expected to continue into the new year. The total cost of employing a full design team to design and manage the works is estimated to be £2.6m “over the next few years”.

Earlier this year, the council bought back the Grade II listed tower from Urban Splash for just £1 - nine years after it was sold to the Manchester-headquartered developer for the same amount. The council quickly revealed a £51m redevelopment and said it wanted to turn the upper storeys into 144 apartments, having secured £8.5m to create a City College Plymouth campus in the bottom three floors.

Cabinet member for finance Cllr Mark Lowry, said: “We have committed to a new life for the Civic Centre and it is a priority for us – not just to build confidence in the wider city centre – but to make sure City College Plymouth have a central location to deliver the next generation of skilled workers for our city’s key industries. We need to deploy consultants with serious expertise to design and manage repair work as well as re-clad the building, replace the façade and get the ground floors ready for fit out and occupation by City College Plymouth.

“We need to do this to secure the campus, keep the public funding already secured for the Civic Centre and to maximise our ability to secure other public funding which is required for the project.”

In March, Cllr Lowry told PlymouthLive the aim is for work to start this year with the scaffolding going up, concrete repairs, and some minor demolition of a 1970s extension. Between then and 2026 the external cladding will be removed, new cladding put on and the roof repaired.

The building will then be ready for City College Plymouth to begin the fit-out of the lowest three storeys to create a skills hub which could attract 2,000 new students. Proposals for the new city centre campus could see up to 60 courses being delivered, focussing on the city’s emerging marine sector – known as the blue sector – as well as a host of programmes in the environment – the green sector.

This work could be finished by late 2026. Cllr Lowry said work on the flats could be completed by early 2028. He said the overall revamp would cost £51m with the council already having about £19m secured, including £8.5m of Levelling Up cash. He said the authority was hoping the Government will provide another £11.1m for housing. The remaining £20m would have to come from loans which would be repaid when the flats sell.

Last year, Squibb Group, which was carrying out demolition work and a soft-strip of internal fittings, pulled its equipment off the site prior to being wound up. Urban Splash, prior to handing the Civic Centre back, had submitted a pre-application proposal which would have seen the shell of the building ripped off and a new facade put on it in the spring and early summer of this year..

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