A former hotel in the heart of Hull is undergoing a significant transformation into new offices following an extensive renovation project.
The Broadway Hotel, located on Ferensway opposite St Stephen's Shopping Centre, was acquired by the Flexworks Group two years ago with the intention to create a contemporary workspace. The building first opened its doors as the Broadway Hotel on Ferensway in the 1930s.
It subsequently housed the Shire Horse pub and Grob and Ducat before transitioning into the Propaganda nightclub and the Broadway Party Bar, which continues to operate today.
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Despite the main section of the building remaining closed since the pandemic, and previous attempts to refurbish its historic rooms, it has now reopened as The Broadway Workspace after an investment of just over £1m. This provides a fresh space for burgeoning and expanding small businesses, as well as individuals, to work in a comfortable yet modern environment.
Rick Bakhshi, CEO and founder of Flexworks Group, has personally invested approximately £700,000 into the project. Two of the four floors are now open for business, complemented by a new coffee shop on the ground floor, reports . Mr Bakhshi and his team have also delved into the building's past, discovering images from its time as a hotel, including pictures of stables, smoking rooms and maids' quarters.
Archival floorplans have been discovered, revealing the evolution of the building's layout over the years, including during the Second World War. Mr Bakhshi's team has collaborated with award-winning interior and lighting specialists to create a comfortable, contemporary workspace.
He said: "We are a modern looking workspace but we don't want to forget what this used to be, and when you walk around the building you get a vibe of that. We acquired the building two years ago, and it was a really old building. Someone carried out some work on it pre-Covid and tried to turn it into lots of secular offices.
"I got involved in 2023 and have lots of experience in prime developments, so know generally how developments should be on the commercial and residential sector side. We came up with a plan on what we thought Hull needed in terms of workspace, so went about cleaning all the stonework on the exterior, and when we did all the work on the interior we also only hired locally."
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The first floor features an event space and co-working area capable of accommodating up to 70 individuals, alongside approximately five smaller offices. The second floor, meanwhile, has capacity for 40 people.
On September 16, the company will host a networking event and open day to showcase the improvements that have been completed at the premises.
Mr Bakhshi remarked: "We're providing a different outlook on what flexible workspace should be. It's the most premium space in Hull and people are getting to know about it, and there are various things happening over the next few months to make that happen.
"We're not competing with the offices offering lots of floor space - we've put together a really nice space to work from, a nice place to be, and it's catching on. In a month's time I'll be putting on an open day and networking event, with people coming along to give talks on AI, LinkedIn, accounting and book-keeping, a historian will also talk about the history of the hotel.
"It's a way for people to get to know us a bit better, that we're here, we're here to stay and we're here to help the close knit community."