Race starts for North East office space

Gateshead Council starts accepting applications for studios at prestigious design centre

Article posted: 07 Aug 2011

North East creative businesses are expected to be vying for new office space in Tyne & Wear at a £9.9m design centre after Gateshead Council last week started accepting applications for studios.

The brand new Northern Design Centre, under construction in Baltic Business Quarter, is hotly tipped to be the location of choice for creative businesses in the region. The four-storey centre is expected to create almost 150 jobs. The fully serviced studios and office space in Gateshead Quays, ranging in size from 170 sq ft to 5000 sq ft, come complete with free access to Gti - one of the fastest broadband internet services in Britain.

Applications for the Northern Design Centre are open to new and established creative businesses such as advertising and marketing agencies, photographers, designers, product developers, service designers, software and web developers. Attractive incentives for three-year leases will be offered.

In addition to these leases, there will also be a range of incubation studios allowing new-start businesses to occupy space on flexible terms and a full range of conference, meeting and exhibition suites.

 
Leader of Gateshead Council, Mick Henry, said: “We recognised some time ago that there is significant pent-up demand for high quality space specifically tailored to the area’s blossoming creative industries. The Northern Design Centre is intended to go some way to plugging that gap and is a hugely significant investment in Gateshead.

“We know that interest in this project has been very high from the outset and we are expecting to hear from lots of businesses who want to work in this fantastic new environment. I think that, within a very short space of time, the Northern Design Centre is going to become a real hotbed of creativity that can make a big contribution to the region’s economy.”

The Northern Design Centre is already lined up to become the new home of Design Network North, an innovative project to improve the contribution of design to the region’s economy, which has already provided a £7m boost since its 2009 launch. Design Network North is run by RTC North, an independent company specialising in innovation.

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Posted by Janet