The Factory Manchester, the flagship cultural venue for the North has been awarded major funding thanks to Arts Council England. The £110m project includes £7m from the Lottery fund and £9m annual revenue from 2018-22.
The Factory will be a unique new venue that will capture the extraordinary creative vision and breadth of Manchester’s cultural life. It will form part of the vibrant new St. John’s neighbourhood, which is being developed by Allied London, in partnership with Manchester City Council, on the site of the former Granada TV Studios.
It will offer audiences the opportunity to enjoy, in a new world-class facility, the broadest range of art forms and cultural experiences – including dance, theatre, music, opera, visual arts, popular culture and innovative contemporary work incorporating multiple media and technologies.
The project aims to accelerate economic growth by creating and supporting almost 1,500 full-time jobs and adding £1.1 billion to the city’s economy over a decade. It will make a direct contribution to the growth of creative industries in the North and wider. It will develop partnerships with the city’s leading higher education institutions and will further support the city’s drive for high calibre graduate talent retention through job creation.
Sir Richard Leese, Leader of Manchester City Council, said “Factory is going to change lives as well as the cultural landscape – not just here in Manchester but nationally and internationally…Factory is, without doubt, what the arts world and Manchester has been waiting for.”
The beginning of enabling works on the building will be marked by a Ground-breaking Ceremony on 8 July 2017, with the building set to open in 2020.
