New image shows Sheffield's Central Library transformed into huge art gallery in £180m project
The plan will be discussed today
This is how Sheffield’s Central Library could look as part of a £180m cultural transformation.
New images show the much-loved building on Surrey Street cleaned up, with safety hoardings removed and a new entrance on Tudor Square.
It would also have a new name: Graves Art Gallery.
Sheffield City Council plans to spend up to £100m turning the Grade II-listed building into a huge art gallery.
It also wants to spend up to £45m converting the Millennium Gallery opposite into a library.
Councillors this week unanimously agreed to approve plans to turn the Sheffield Central Library building into a modern and accessible art gallery, and move the library and city archives into an upgraded Millennium Gallery building.
Councillors on the Strategy and Resources Policy Committee approved a £100,000 budget for the next stage of the plans.
The authority has not said where funding for the 10-year project will come from.
A previous Graves Galley, on the top floor of the Central Library, closed on October 31 due to a faulty heating system.
The state of the building has been causing concerns since the 1990s.
In 2020, the head of the city’s museum service said time was ‘running out’ to keep it in a functioning state.
Hoardings and canopies to protect against falling masonry were installed in January 2023.
In the last three years tradespeople were called out 565 times to fix taps, toilets, fire alarms, lifts, radiators, lights, doors, plaster, CCTV and the roof from April 2023 to August this year. The cost was £153,770.
In the same period council chiefs paid £53,018 for scaffolding and hoardings due to the risk of falling masonry.
Some £10,264 was also spent installing three protective entrance gates and two years’ hire up to July 30, 2025.
The figures were in a Freedom of Information response to The Star.
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