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It looks like there will be no stay of demolition of the old bank façade at the Sean Hollywood Arts Centre with the council set to spend at least £23,000,000 to “refurbish the existing Newry Town Hall and extend the current accommodation (c1700m2) by demolishing and redeveloping the redundant Sean Hollywood Arts Centre and No 2 Bank Parade.”
With no funding available, the £23,000,000, will be paid for by ratepayers.
It’s a far cry from the £9.5m Newry, Mourne and Down District Council had estimated it would cost to build in September 2019. By the following January 2020, that figure had risen to £12m. A year later in January 2021, it had gone up to £13.2 however, there was a massive jump by February 2022 with architects revealing during the public consultation on the design, that the figure to build the new theatre/conference centre was, at that stage, £18.4m before it reached the current estimated cost of £23m in August this year.
Unknown
It is unclear if the latest figure includes the fit out - seating, lighting, curtains, etc, a booking system, flood alleviation - particularly following the recent flooding of the site - professional fees or any other additional requirements particular to the project.
It is also unknown if the £23m includes any funding from the Belfast Region City Deal (BRCD) to cover the cost of the public realm works around the theatre/conference site. The Department of Communities, which is managing the BRCD £5m for the Newry public realm, had not responded to a Newry.ie request for information at the time of publication.
Originally launched as a 500-seater vision by then Council CEO Liam Hannaway in November 2017, the new theatre/conference centre will seat just over 250 people and will be linked to Newry Town Hall by a glass atrium.
In the 2021 public survey/consultation on the Council’s Newry City Centre Regeneration projects, the theatre/conference centre ranked second from five projects, behind the Albert Basin Park, the public wanted developed in the city.
Council knew but wouldn’t say
Newry.ie requested the most recent estimated costs over the last number of months but the Council management has not provide any information.
However, the tender for the demolition and redevelopment of the Sean Hollywood Arts Centre was released last summer but it is unclear why the Council is reluctant to release the figures to the general public via a media request.
On September 15 Newry.ie put a request into the council for the latest estimated cost to build the proposed theatre/conference centre - fitted out and complete. This was an unanswered question we had previously posed in April.
We asked the same question for the proposed new council offices behind Newry Cathedral which the council wouldn’t answer either - but which we then discovered will cost ratepayers at least £18,000,000.
We also requested the latest estimated cost, over and above the £5m funding available to build/complete the proposed public realm associated with the Newry regeneration projects as in January 2022, that was going to require an input of at least £1,100,000 over and above the £5m, again from ratepayers.
We asked the council to address the September 15 questions on October 12, on October 19 and again on October 26 - even though the tender process had finished, the Council has not proved any information. No information has been provided.
