Plans have been revealed for a new live music and events space in the heart of one of Manchester's newest neighbourhoods.
It's hoped the exciting new space will open in Circle Square, and music and entertainment specialists BeSixth have kickstarted plans for the "first of its kind" community lifestyle venue.
Canvas Manchester will bring live music, events and entertainment to the heart of Circle Square, as well as providing space for the community to socialise, meet, work, eat and drink across the venue’s three distinctive areas - Canvas Kitchen, Canvas Club and Canvas Events.
The venue, which is subject to planning permission, will take 8,800 sq ft across the ground and basement floors at No 1 Circle Square and it is set to open in 2021.
Dean James, chairman of BeSixth, said: “With Canvas Manchester we want to introduce a brand new lifestyle concept that will bring people together and offer something new and exciting to those living and working in the city.
"I think people in Manchester understand that we are going to get through this pandemic, we’re going to get back on our feet and the city is going to get back on its feet.
"With its people, a rich and diverse cultural scene, Manchester was always going to be the first city we said yes to when we decided to invest outside of London but we didn’t think we would find anything like the site at Circle Square.”
According to the developers, Canvas Kitchen will be a 100-seat ground-floor restaurant open to the public every day from 7am until 4am.
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The Canvas Club lounge will be a "unique and affordable" take on the private members club, offering a "premium day and night experience".
Canvas Events will be hosted in a new subterranean 400-capacity live music and events space, that will focus on health and wellbeing sessions, social activism, networking and workshops, alongside a bi-weekly club and gig programme.
BeSixth said the move signals confidence in the "breadth and diversity" of Manchester’s live music and cultural scene, as it launches its first project outside on London.
Located on the Oxford Road Corridor, Circle Square is a joint venture between Bruntwood SciTech and Vita Group, and is a new neighbourhood for the city’s entrepreneurial, academic and creative communities.
Once complete, it will contain over 1,700 new homes, 1.2m sq ft of workspace and over 100,000 sq ft of retail and leisure space, including a variety of boutique retailers, restaurants, bars and pavement cafes, all centred around Symphony Park, Manchester’s largest and newest city centre park.
Gavin Aldrich, CEO at BeSixth, added: “We’ll be in the heart of a thriving, city centre neighbourhood that brings together people from all walks of life - be it students, shoppers, business owners or academics - and it's this community that makes us confident Circle Square will be the perfect destination to launch Canvas Manchester.”
Tom Renn, managing director of Bruntwood SciTech, Manchester, said: “Our ambition for Circle Square was always to create a destination - a place that would bring people together morning, day and night and a place that would become part of the fabric of the city.
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"Somewhere tourists and innovators would see as a must-visit when coming to Manchester.
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“With a cluster of over 40 digital and tech businesses, an incredible collection of indie retail and social dining operators at Hatch and with Manchester’s newest outdoor event space ‘Symphony Park’, we are starting to see the neighbourhood develop at a pace never seen before in a new neighbourhood in Manchester.
“Canvas Manchester is another step change for Circle Square.
"The commitment from BeSixth to move this forward is both a nod to Manchester’s rich history and is a sign of confidence in our city’s future cultural scene. The live music industry has understandably suffered as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, but where better to drive its resurgence than in the ‘City that thinks a table is for dancing on’?”