Councillors At a meeting of the Strategy Policy and Resources Committee of Newry Mourne and Down District Council, Councillors voted to accept a number of key recommendation presented by a council officer to progress in the development of a new civic centre in Newry.
The complex will be located on the existing Town Hall and Sean Hollywood site.
This centre will include a studio theatre which will put Newry on a standard for the professional, studio-scale touring circuit.
In the Main Town hall, a high quality, multi-use room will be provided, equipped to accomodate occasional music performances; conferences; banquets; local community amateur and sem-professional performing arts groups.
Along with a canal-side cafe and bar facilities, there will be visual arts display areas, and informal internal and external pop-up performance areas.
This centre will include a studio theatre which will put Newry on a standard for the professional, studio-scale touring circuit.
Overall, the new facility will create a new and fully accessible and open-to-all cultural focal point for Newry which includes a number of key improvements over and beyond the existing facility.
Councillor Michael Savage said: “This recommendation from the officer must be accepted. I would like to congratulate the working group for their efforts and the administrators supporting this effort.
“This will be a major project for Newry and this is a chance to showcase our state-of-the-art facilities, and we have an excellent creative community here in Newry and they will support this proposal.”
It is also hoped to have a conference centre that can accommodate up to 300 attendees.These facilities will include meeting spaces, a plenary space, a breakout area, and space for exhibition and catering.
Adrian Grimshaw, the Council Project Director, said: “This centre will include a studio theatre which will put Newry on a standard for the professional, studio-scale touring circuit.
“Overall, the new facility will create a new and fully accessible and open-to-all cultural focal point for Newry which includes a number of key improvements over and beyond the existing facility.
“In the Main Town hall, a high quality, multi-use room will be provided, equipped to accommodate occasional music performances; conferences; banquets; local community amateur and semi-professional performing arts groups.
“Along with a canal-side cafe and bar facilities, there will be visual arts display areas, and informal internal and external pop-up performance areas.
“It is hoped to have a conference centre that can accommodate up to 300 attendees.These facilities will include meeting spaces, a plenary space, a breakout area, and space for exhibition and catering.”
Back in 6th June 2018, the SPR committee gave the thumbs up for the strategic development Outline Case with further approval for procurement. Plann Ltd was appointed in September to perform a capacity Study and Design Brief for the Theatre / Conference Centre project which would study the workability of the plan in relation to the existing theatre. art centre buildings and the Ross Thompson site. This study will also include an analysis of the site’s capacity to meet effectiveness of putting the theatre, arts centre and conferencing centre adjacent to each other.
Following Plann Ltd’s appointment, Plann then subsequently engaged The Right Solution to create more conference market research to help inform the capacity study and Design Brief. The Right Solution identified that 90% of events include activities of under 200 people with occasional larger events. On 5th December 2018, a presentation was made to the Special Projects Working Group where Plann Ltd presented their findings and recommendations.
The councillors fully accepted the officers recommendations and it will now go to full final approval at the February full council meeting.
