Sheffield developments: £470m Heart of the City regeneration scheme starts to pay off - with more to come

After years of planning and much spending, the £470m project began to generate serious cash for the city council.

Bosses will be pleased with recent deals which saw BOX sports bar become an instant hit in the Gaumont Building on Barker’s Pool and Pret a Manger return to the city with a popular new cafe on Cambridge Street.

The run of launches includes fashion retailer Cream Store on Charles Street, and Bird and Blend tea shop and Savills Barber, next to each other on Pinstone Street.

And it is set to continue with the blockbuster announcement of a Euro-inspired beer hall and restaurant next year, aiming to be the largest of its kind in the city.

Two Thirds Beer Co is set to to open in Elshaw House, the new office block on Wellington and Carver streets in the Heart of the City development.

Heart of the City II started in 2019 when HSBC moved into the newly-built Grosvenor House. Law firm CMS soon followed and The Furnace restaurant opened in Charter Square in 2021. It is still going strong.

On the ground floor of the building, Marmaduke’s cafe on Cambridge Street, was an early pioneer. Monki and Weekday fashion stores followed.

Then there was a lull while builders, including Sheffield-based Henry Boot, got on with erecting a hotel, food hall, office block, flats, a park and revamping a mesters’ workshop.

Now they are all open.

Cambridge Street Collective food hall is a huge success, restored Leah’s Yard is full of independent businesses, Radisson operates one of the city’s best hotels and Kangaroo Works flats on Wellington Street are understood to be almost full.

Law firm DLA Piper took the top two floors of Elshaw House and Pounds Park is popular, not least with the growing number of residents in the area, although it will wave goodbye to direct sunshine when Cidon completes its huge apartment complex, which is not part of Heart of the City, on Wellington Street.

But that’s the price of progress.

Other retailers include Sostrene Greene homewares on Cambridge Street and outdoor wear at Yard’s Store on Charles Street.

And aforementioned firm Henry Boot relocated from Banner Cross Hall into new premises on Charles Street.

Hopefully 2025 will see the success continue with deals for the remaining retail units - on Charles, Cambridge, Wellington and Pinstone streets and Barker’s Pool - office space, Gaumont cinema leisure space, Bethel Chapel events space on Cambridge Street, and development plots: Stirrings Place on Wellington Street and Carlisle House on Rockingham Street - and perhaps even the small plot on Carver Street/ Backfields called The Combhouse.

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The former Salvation Army Citadel is a new addition to the scheme. Formerly privately owned, this listed building on Cross Burgess Street was snapped up by the council late in 2024. Officials can at last say they are developing a plan for it, which for the previous 15 years they couldn’t.

As council leader Tom Hunt likes to say: “Sheffield is on the up.”