Work is well under way on a £2.9million “boulevard” that will link Plymouth city centre to the waterfront and be lined with shops, restaurants, homes and hotels.
Demolition work is now well advanced in Bath Street, the back alley that runs behind he city’s huge Pavilions music and sports venue.
The plan is to widen this dingy service road into a major thoroughfare, demolishing redundant and industrial buildings to clear space for new, modern blocks.
The ambitious project - part funded by The European Regional Development Fund, Interreg 2 Seas and the Water Resilient Cities Programme – will fit into a wider redevelopment of the Millbay docks area.
Since 2006 the once industrial docklands have been cleared and new housing and commercial space has sprung up next to the water.
Now the city council is leading a project to link this emergent area to the city centre where more development is ongoing.
In 2018 the empty Two Trees pub and ugly Union Street footbridge were knocked down. The council has also bought a former Toys r Us superstore and will eventually remove that too.
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The local authority has also been steadily acquiring properties in and around Bath Street, Martin Street and Colin Campbell Court to enable generation of the much heralded boulevard.
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This included acquiring the famous The Hub music venue – which has hosted gigs from hundreds of well known acts including Buzzcock, Secret Affair, Lee “Scratch” Perry, the Wedding Present and Stiff Little Fingers – and specialists form Devon’s Gilpin Demolition are now tearing the building apart.
Demolition has also been ongoing at the rear of the Pavilions site to remove a ramp and release an 8m-wide tract of land which will be used to widen the road.
The lower part of a wall will now be clad and rendered before work starts to dig up sections of Bath Street to allow an innovative sustainable drainage system to be put in place.
Underground tanks will be installed under the highway, capable of holding 240 tonnes of water in case flooding occurs when high rainfall coincide with high tides.
Above the tanks will be “rain gardens’” – sunken beds planted with coastal grasses and flowering plants arranged beneath an avenue of trees – which will be irrigated by rain and flood water.
The system is being developed by the boulevard project team in partnership with the Environment Agency and South West Water, as part of the Water Resilient Cities Interreg Programme.”
Meanwhile, Dutch-based Vastint Hospitality wants to put a 175-bedroom hotel, seven houses and seven studio apartments for short-term rent, on what is now the Pavilions car park.
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The company, bought the car park from former Plymouth Argyle chairman James Brent’s Natatomisam company in 2018 and is keen to build one of Marriott’s new brand Moxy hotels, aimed at fashionable Millennials, on the site.
That will feed into the boulevard project too, which is designed to be in keeping with its waterfront location and become an attractive and safe walking and cycling route where there will eventually be about 300 homes plus with shops and offices.
The council is working with Homes England to select a private sector delivery partner to bring forward the housing aspect of the scheme. Other organisations involved in the wider project include Plymouth Waterfront Partnership and Plymouth Pavilions.
Council leader Tudor Evans said: “This is not just any road – it’s a road that signals new life and new homes for this part of Plymouth.
“We are doing things very differently. We are thinking much further ahead, about climate change and measures we can take now to make life that bit easier later on.”