A new workplace hub for the region's creative industry is set to launch in Birmingham early next year - in the former home of HP Sauce.
Called 'Creative Content Hub', it will be housed in a warehouse complex in the Digbeth district after a wholesale renovation project completes.
Oval Real Estate acquired The Bond Company offices and event space in Fazeley Street in 2018 and has since been working with Greater Birmingham and Solihull Local Enterprise Partnership and industry body Create Central to reimagine the space, now called 'The Bond'.
Spread across five buildings and totalling 55,500 sq ft of space, Oval hopes to create a focal point for television, film and digital content production by developing screening rooms, pod rooms and studios alongside the site's own canalside wharf.
Since the purchase four years ago, the complex has been partially closed down but has remained available for hire for events and weddings and it will also continue to have event space for hire following the planned relaunch in February.
Sitting at the junction of the River Rea and the Grand Union Canal, the industrial complex was once home to an ice factory, HP Sauce factory and a bonded warehouse. Oval Real Estate owns the Custard Factory and Fazeley Studios buildings, also in Digbeth, which it bought in 2017.
Founder James Craig said: "We aim to leave buildings and neighbourhoods better than we found them and, as custodians of the Digbeth Estate, we are working with West Midlands Combined Authority and Birmingham City Council to deliver meaningful change in Digbeth by continuing the careful transformation of the area.
"We are looking forward to revealing the Creative Content Hub at The Bond in 2023. As the Midlands' newest production hub, The Bond will be an epicentre for film, media and tech within the growing Digbeth community.
"The revival of the Bond serves as a reminder that Birmingham can turn its hand to anything."
This new project will add to the growing development of creative and media space in Digbeth, with plans recently lodged to build new TV studios to host hit BBC show MasterChef from 2024.
And the BBC itself is set to move its Birmingham-based team from the Mailbox to the old Typhoo Wharf building in Bordesley Street from 2025.
Create Central chairman Ed Shedd added: "When Create Central was launched in 2019, the members pitched the idea of a content hub - it's so exciting to see real, tangible results from all the industry's hard work paying off.
"The Creative Content Hub will be a huge catalyst to kick-start the sector post-pandemic. It is just one of the many ways the West Midlands is at the forefront of developing new ways of working that will re-invent and future-proof traditional television, film and wider digital content production."
