Take a seat for Derby city centre’s transformational year

The latest edition of Marketing Derby’s Innovate magazine looks ahead to the spring 2025 opening of Vaillant Live – the impressive new 3,500-capacity performance venue in Derby city centre.

Vaillant Live is just one of many regeneration projects and developments transforming Derby city centre, bringing more people to visit and to live, work and study in the heart of the city.

The spring edition of the magazine Innovate includes a useful reminder of just how much investment is going into those schemes, including the £35m Victorian Market Hall due to re-open in spring 2025; Wavensmere Homes’ £75m transformation of the neglected Friar Gate Goods Yard site into a mixed-use scheme; and the £4m Eastern Gateway development by Derbion which will provide a new, vibrant welcome to the millions of passengers at Derby bus station.

Also opening in 2025 is the University of Derby’s new £75m business school, the Cavendish Building, as part of its growing city centre campus.

Plans for Rail Campus Derby, launched in autumn 2024, are progressing to develop a hub for the UK’s rail industry and supply chain with businesses co-locating alongside the new headquarters for Great British Railways.

Derby has been chosen as the home of Great British Railways, beating off competition from five other shortlisted cities across the UK.

Speaking at the 2024 campus launch, Councillor Nadine Peatfield, leader of Derby City Council said: “Rail Campus Derby will not only preserve our rail heritage but will also be a catalyst for future economic growth, bringing together all aspects of the railway industry, attracting more investment, and creating further opportunities for collaboration across the sector.”

The momentum of major projects in Derby city centre, with £1.9bn having been attracted, will form part of Team Derby’s pitch at the UK Real Estate Investment and Infrastructure Forum (UKREiiF) in Leeds this year (20-22 May).

The transformation of Derby city centre is a key part of Derby’s local growth strategies, aiming to bring more people living, working and visiting the heart of the city.

In particular at UKREiiF, representatives of Team Derby from Derby City Council and the city’s inward investment agency, Marketing Derby, will showcase the city centre’s potential as an office location.

A new City Centre Office Prospectus will be launched at the East Midlands Combined County Authority’s pavilion at UKREiiF on Tuesday 20 May.

John Forkin, managing director of Marketing Derby said: “Derby’s city centre is emerging as the key location for offices and occupiers.

“Over the past two decades, this role has been taken by Pride Park, which is now fully developed and congested.

“Post-COVID, the nature of modern business is demanding bespoke and attractive spaces within vibrant, urban areas.

“Derby city centre already has more square feet of office space than Pride Park – and this is increasing as premises are refreshed and re-purposed and new buildings are being planned.”

For more details of Team Derby’s activities at UKREiiF, see here.