Building’ to reach new heights
ward an amazing vision for what Wapping Wharf can be and ultimately it’s about making Wapping Wharf even better.”
Cargo is currently home to some of the most popular and original food and retail businesses in Bristol. These include award-winning restaurants like Root, Box-E and Salt & Malt plus The Bristol Cheesemonger, Woky Ko, Gambas and Seven Lucky Gods.
Stuart says the hope is that most of these will move into the new building and it has been designed in such a way that different levels will be tailor-made for different businesses.
“We’ve designed it so everybody who is currently at Cargo can move to this new building. One or two retailers might say this is not where they want to go with their business and I totally respect that but I believe the vast majority of the restaurants will want to.
“As to who gets each one, we’re still in the early days and haven’t even got planning yet. But there’s a real community at Cargo and I know all the businesses individually.
“I frequent them all, I know the chefs and the staff. We’ve got an idea where we can place the individual businesses already.
“On the ground floor it will be more of the takeaway-style businesses like Loke Poke and Squeezed, and then we’ll have this amazing indoor market. I want to recreate a sort of Barcelona-style indoor food market.
“I want this area to have the fishmonger, the butcher, a greengrocer, the cheese shop, wine shop, cider shop, bakery, cake shop – it will be a really good South West produce indoor market.
“As you move up the building, we’ll have more casual dining and then as you go up the building further, there will be more of the dinein restaurants.
“It’s all about making the space better for them all. We’ve designed it around the retailers and we kind of know where each business will work best.
“I’d also love a cookery school in there, and although Cargo is foodcentric, there are opportunities for other businesses to open there. We’ve always curated a mix of retailers – the biggest challenge is that most of the businesses have needed more space so it’s not about getting lots more businesses, it’s about letting the existing ones breathe even more.
“I don’t operate like the national developers. It’s about the businesses and the maturation of the community in the mix and people have to trust me on that as I’ve spent the past six years filling these units with amazing businesses.”
But what about concerns that the eventual removal of the shipping containers will strip away the unique vibe at Cargo?
“People have said they don’t want to see the containers go but it’s not about the containers, it’s about the people and the businesses. You don’t say ‘I’d love to go out for dinner in a shipping container’.
“The vibe comes from the individual businesses and if we give them the space to put their stamp on the new units, it will be a different vibe but it will still be a great vibe. But I do feel a huge responsibility, I really do.
“What I can assure people of is that it won’t be corporate, we are not a corporate company. We absolutely won’t be letting national restaurant chains come into Wapping Wharf because that would ruin the vibe.
“When it comes to rents, Cargo has always been about what can a good restaurant afford, what can a good retailer afford so we started with £150 a week.
“The businesses all want more space so the rents will go up proportionately from what they pay at the moment but we’re a developer landlord and I want to be a happy landlord. A happy landlord is one who has tenants who can afford to pay their rent, who are running great businesses and making money and are successful. I’d be mad not to ensure that.
“What would possess me to design a building and then not populate it with all the wonderful businesses already there? It’s depressing that people would even think that.”
The new development will include around 240 new sustainable, ‘high quality’ homes of different sizes and tenures, including 20 per cent affordable, for social rent or shared ownership, with the remainder for open market sale.
It is hoped a wide range of apartment sizes, individual balconies and several shared landscaped rooftop gardens will help attract people who want to live there for the long term, building on the strong sense of community that already exists at Wapping Wharf.
Rising above a two-storey podium, the apartments will be housed in five buildings which step down in height towards Wapping Road. Stuart says: “Wapping Wharf is successful because we have a real mix of tenures. The site already has a commitment for 20 per cent affordable housing and that was agreed back in 2007.
“We have a great relationship with the council and their housing officers so we’re also exploring proper family homes. The range of housing units is greater than just meeting minimum space standards and we’re looking to create a diverse range of one, two and three-bedroom homes.”
These are early days on this major new harbourside project. Stuart says they’ll make the planning application in the autumn but actual construction won’t happen for a couple of years at least.
“The planning application will take some time, and I’m sure there will be a great deal of debate, but we’d expect to get planning permission in the spring or summer of 2023. It’s an incredibly complex building so we’ll then need to do all the designs and find a contractor so there’s a long way to go and I don’t think we’ll be doing anything on site until well into 2025.”
In the meantime, it will be business as usual at Cargo 1 and 2, although those businesses know they will be relocated at some point closer to the start of building work. Quite when or how that will happen isn’t quite confirmed, according to Stuart.
“We’ve talked to the vast majority of business owners and they know our intention is to relocate them while we build the new building. We did suggest building a festival-style village for them but the majority came back and said they didn’t want that, but for us to simply move the containers. The honest answer is that we haven’t resolved this yet but the general plan is to relocate those businesses somewhere else at Wapping Wharf at a time when it’s a quieter trading period. We’ll work closely with them on this as we’ve got to make it work for them and for us.
“The businesses appreciate that they’ll have to go through a bit of upheaval but they know the end result will be amazing.”
Public consultation on the proposals for Wapping Wharf North takes place until July 8 – it can be viewed at www.wappingwharfnorth.co.uk
I’d never forgive myself if it wasn’t great. I still believe we’re putting forward an amazing vision for what Wapping Wharf can be and ultimately it’s about making Wapping Wharf even better STUART HATTON, MD OF UMBERSLADE