By Brad Barnes

brad.barnes@jpimedia.co.uk

The company that built what was to become the beating heart of Peterborough city centre’s nightlife is looking to spearhead a revival.

The “to let” signs have gone up on the former Halo bar on the corner of Northminster and New Road, which closed two years ago.

Its closure brought the curtain down on what a decade earlier had been Peterborough’s night-time entertainments hub - with the likes of Ghost, Envy and Liquid already lying empty.

Now Unex Group, which built that whole development in two phases in the 1990s before selling its interest to bar and club operators, has bought it back.

The marketing for the former Halo bar site and the vacant Jimmy Spices restaurant/Lakeside Superbowl bowling alley site at the bottom end of New Road has been handed to commercial real estate consultants Colliers International.

And the company hopes finding operators for the sites will acts as a catalyst for others.

Unex managing director Adrian Morris said: “It was a little sad to see what we had built, and was fully occupied and vibrant when we sold it, all boarded up when we bought it back.

“We now have these two vacant sites with Colliers to find suitable tenants and we are fairly hopeful of bringing them back into use.,

“Who knows, if we can let these, then the operators responsible for the other empty premises down there might follow suit and reopen.”

@PTbradbarnes