Event Central: Builder chosen for £7m Sheffield cultural hub on Fargate but won't start for 11 months

Builders have been chosen for a £7m cultural hub in Sheffield city centre - but they won’t be on site for almost a year.

Willmott Dixon won the contract to revamp the former six-storey former shop at 20-26 Fargate.

Event Central will have a live music space in the basement, workshops on the ground, first and second floors, and offices on the third and fourth floors. 

The building belongs to Sheffield City Council.

A spokesperson said 'pre-construction activity' had already started. But contractors won’t be on site until January 2025, after the revamp of Fargate has finished.

Willmott Dixon built South Yorkshire Police’s Sheffield Custody Suite on Shepcote Lane which opened in 2016. The £1.5bn turnover firm slipped to a £15,000 loss last year after it set aside £61.8m for cladding safety work post-Grenfell. It is headquartered in Letchworth, Hertfordshire.

Event Central is funded in part by the Government’s Future High Streets Fund. The council secured £15.8m in December 2020. It spent £1.68m buying the building. The fit-out tender was for £7m.

Councillor Ben Miskell, chair of the transport, regeneration and climate committee, said: "Event Central is going to be a fantastic and vibrant cultural hub for Sheffield and will offer a truly unique space for the city. We know that Sheffield is packed with talent, and this will be the perfect place to showcase it, attracting thousands of visitors a year.

"The transformation will also be a crucial part of our vision for Fargate, which is currently undergoing a transformation as part of a huge regeneration of the city centre.

"Once complete, Event Central will be able to take its place alongside the other fantastic venues we have in Sheffield, and we’re really excited with what it will bring to the people of the city. This and the wider development on Fargate is yet another example that Sheffield city centre is on the up."