With eight colleges across the UK and Europe, BIMM has signed a 15 year lease on TCN’s St James’s House in Stokes Croft, Bristol.
As part of the agreement, regeneration company TCN UK will develop the vacant 40,000 sq.ft building into a buzzing music institution, welcoming students from September 2022.
TCN UK acquired St James’s House in 2013 for £3.3m, occupied at the time by Teleperformance. At expiry of their lease in 2018 part of the site was sold to Watkins Jones with planning for a 120 bed student scheme, whilst the remaining office building remained vacant pending redevelopment.
Having obtained a change of use permitting educational use, the brief from BIMM was to turn the vacant office building into a beautifully contemporary, industrial, flagship learning space, with natural materials and a clever lighting system that offers an abundance of environments for students, staff and the community to experience.
At the heart of the building, the grand central atrium will be designed as a magnificent open stage for performances. A fantastic addition to TCN’s surprising places.
The facilities and equipment will support learning across all of the college’s courses, including performance, media, marketing, music business, event management, music production, and music teaching.
The new building will house:
- Two industry-standard recording studios and live rooms
- A creative media suite with a green screen and professional lighting rig
- Two high specification performance spaces
- A glass DJ performance booth
- Café-bar with a range of Mac labs, study spaces, edit suites, rehearsal rooms and lecture rooms
TCN Founder, Richard Pearce states:
“We’re delighted to have BIMM part of the TCN community. Our buildings are a combination of entrepreneurial, creative people and cleverly designed spaces; built for collaboration. Stokes Croft is the ideal place for a thriving creative community like BIMM to experience.”
Robert Hoadley, Managing Director of TCN, said:
"We pride ourselves in the support and development of people and businesses on their entrepreneurial journey - what better way to do this than remodelling a space for musical students and staff to thrive.”
Andy Heath from letting agents Squared states:
“This is further evidence of the ongoing rejuvenation of this part of Stokes Croft and is part of the vision that TCN saw when investing into this building 8 years ago. BIMM will add to the true mixed use nature of the area and bring further footfall to Stokes Croft. “
Hannah Phipps, College Principal says:
“Stokes Croft in Bristol is perfectly located for students and local artists to showcase their work and create interdisciplinary exhibitions. We couldn’t have found a more exciting developer. TCN create surprising places and manage vibrant creative communities across the UK. Their portfolio of spaces are exciting to walk into, offering a unique experience for the occupiers - their members are already in the creative industries, and we’re excited to be part of that.”
TCN UK is celebrating their 15 year anniversary of transforming spaces into creative places with projects in Reading, London, Birmingham, Bristol, Bath and Somerset. CSquared acted for TCN UK as property agents, and David Charles Property Consultants and Avison Young acted for BIMM.
Studio People advised BIMM on their fit out whilst Paragon and Interactive acted for TCN on the redevelopment.
https://www.tcnuk.co.uk/