Winning city centre bids to be unveiled next week

Swansea city centre’s future will be unveiled next week.

Swansea Council is organising an event at Meridian Tower for the morning of Friday January 22 where developers who will help create the new city centre will be announced.

The council first put the St David’s and Civic Centre development sites on the marketplace this time last year as it looks to breathe new life into the city centre and make the Swansea Bay City Region economy more competitive.

Representatives from Swansea’s business, academic and sporting communities are all being invited to the launch event.

Cllr Rob Stewart, Swansea Council Leader, said: “There is huge interest in this announcement because it’s a significant milestone for our plans to regenerate Swansea city centre. The quality of the bids we received for the Civic Centre and St David’s sites were hugely impressive, but Cabinet has now arrived at a decision which means that we’ll be in a position next week to publicly announce details of the successful companies and their winning ideas.

“We hope everyone who wants to see Swansea succeed will be excited about the plans. They illustrate the ambition we have for our wonderful city and underline our commitment to delivering a top quality city centre for the benefit of local people, existing traders and visitors.

“Working closely alongside partners including the Welsh Government, our plans are crucially important as we look to boost the city centre’s status as the regional capital of the Swansea Bay City Region economy. We hope the plans will help Swansea become one of the UK’s top 20 shopping destinations and bring thousands of construction and permanent jobs to the city, creating a new city centre experience that people will enjoy for generations to come.”

Work is also continuing in other parts of the city, Cllr Stewart said. Demolition of the former Oceana nightclub building on Kingsway is progressing and the external structure will start to come down shortly.

Cllr Stewart said “Over the next few years, the city landscape will change dramatically as development goes up a few gears,” he said. “Subject to funding, the former Oceana building now being demolished will be replaced by a new office development. This will spark the transformation of Kingsway into a business district that will generate more footfall in the city centre and lead to more spending and investment.”

Demolition of the former Oceana building is scheduled to be finished by the end of May. The work is being funded by the Welsh Government’s Vibrant and Viable Places Swansea City Centre regeneration programme that was awarded in June, 2014.

Vibrant and Viable Places (VVP) is a three-year programme (2014-2017) through which Swansea Council has been awarded £8.53 million to target key regeneration projects in the city centre.