In just a few years Albion Square will be transformed into a vibrant new place to live, work and socialise, in a development dubbed one of England’s most exciting regeneration schemes. Last month, Hull City Council announced social regeneration champions Capital&Centric as the firm to lead the multimillion-pound plans.
And the Manchester firm has quite the pedigree, with 11 completed neighbourhood projects around the UK already, providing rental homes for city dwellers, alongside surrounding bars, restaurants, cafes, bakeries, gyms, cinemas and yoga studios. Capital&Centric’s plans include more than 200 homes to rent – as well as a host of other features in Albion Square – and the emphasis on housing demonstrates the city’s changing needs over the years.
It’ll represent a marked departure from the shopping and entertainment which dominated the square in the 1960s, when shoppers flocked to the Skyline Ballroom music venue on the top floor of the since-flattened Co-op. Those department stores famously defined the area in the late 20th Century, replacing townhouses, commercial garages and Royal Institution buildings.
More recent times, however, have seen the push towards regeneration. Back in 2016, indicative plans were published by the council, after Albion Square was identified as one of 14 new sites to be added following the successful Enterprise Zone extension bid in 2015.
At the time, it was estimated that a whopping 240,000sqft of retail space could be accommodated on the Albion Square site, “providing the opportunity to create a strong retail anchor”, and it was mooted that the site also had the potential for a major leisure attraction.
Drawings at the time highlighted lots of planned retail space, a multi storey car-park and some housing. Following the pandemic, in 2023, Albion Square was set to feature large amounts of grade A office space following “a significant loss of older office space in the city centre, especially to housing”. Plans for an ice rink also figured highly (but were soon scrapped).
Recent years, however, and changing shopping habits, coupled with the cost-of-living crisis and more cautious consumer high street spending, has switched the emphasis to housing and some leisure.
Last year saw the completion of the first phase of the development – the launch of the £18m Community Diagnostic Centre, relieving the strain on acute hospitals while also creating around 100 local jobs. And now Capital&Centric are drawing up proposals to put to the public in due course.
A host of new buildings are set for construction – and many readers will have fond memories of the major properties demolished to make way for the future development. A number of buildings have had to be flattened before development work can progress – including the landmark former BHS and Co-Op buildings, and the former Edwin Davis department store on Bond Street, which will be known to many as the old Evolution nightclub in the 1990s.
The Hull Daily Mail announced the closure of Edwins on the front page on February 3rd, 1978, but it was left to rot for many years before demolition teams moved in.
The former department store on Jameson Street had been vacant since the 1990s ahead of its demolition. The Grade II listed Three Ships mosaic within the property has, of course, been preserved as part of the scheme, after securing listed heritage status to ensure their protection.
The Alan Boyson ‘Sponge Mural’, which is now within the Community Diagnostic Centre’s reception, had previously been installed between 1961 and 1963 in the Skyline Pantry restaurant of the former BHS building. The Angela Gasparelli School of Dancing also held lessons at the old Skyline Ballroom in the 1960s.
The Hull Co-operative Society building on Jameson Street and Bond Street corner will be recognised by many of a certain age who will remember this as the way in to access the top floor disco, Romeo and Juliets, and its function room called Silks. The disco closed down in the early 1990s after police conducted a huge raid after concerns were expressed over drugs being used by patrons.
CGIs show the changing face of Albion Square plans
The latest images show just how far the plans have evolved, with bright street scenes and lush greenery peppered around new and regenerated buildings. They couldn’t be more different from the first pictures linked to the square’s revamp.
Early CGIs show how the development could have been very different, with plans originally set to include offices and retail. The image below was mocked up in 2018, and earlier artist’s impressions show how even more plans that have fallen by the wayside amid changing city centre needs and appetites.
Pictures from 2017 show how an ice rink was planned for the square, alongside a new courtyard and retail space. Those plans were later scrapped, however.
With housing and city-centre living now very much at the fore in the, it is hoped Albion Square will become a catalyst for more high-quality homes in Hull, creating exciting new neighbourhoods. And looking ahead, Capital&Centric co-founder Tim Heatley hopes that Albion Square will be the first of several schemes in the Humber region for the company.
He said: “Wherever we have started, whatever city we’ve started to develop, we have continued to develop and still are now. That’s a really good test of ‘are we doing a good job?’ Do people like what we do? And is it successful? So hopefully it’s the first of many things we will do in Hull.”
Get all the latest headlines sent straight to your inbox for free with our newsletter. You can stay up to date with all the breaking news and top stories as they happen in Hull and East Yorkshire by clicking this link .