New chapter for former bookshop
A Sunderland city centre building once home to Hills Bookshop is set to inspire again as it is turned into an arts centre.
The site in Waterloo Place has been taken on by Broadside Creatives Community Interest Company after lying empty for some time – with book sales to return as part of the ambitious and busy plan for the venue.
The team plan to turn it into an independent arts centre with a cafe, supplies shop, gallery and exhibition space, offices which will be up for rent and an open plan artist studio spaces to help emerging talent, which will be set up in a glass atrium space.
It will also offer counselling spaces, a dance and pilates studio in a mirror-lined room, and a roof terrace with a view to turning it into a sensory garden complete with urban bees project.
Mark Burns Cassell, executive director of Broadside Creatives CIC, which recently took over the former Creative Cohesion studios in Nile Street and also runs studios in Norfolk Street and John Street, said new life would be breathed into the shop, with disabled access part of the plans.
He said: “We have purchased the building that was once the home of one of Sunderland's most long-lived and iconic businesses, Hills Bookshop.
"Hills is known to almost everyone in Sunderland and remembered fondly; it is where children bought their school books and cashed in their Christmas gift vouchers, and bought their art supplies.
“Hills originally opened their doors on Christmas Eve 1852. We have scheduled our official opening to take place on Christmas Eve, 2021 - 169 years to the day that Hills first opened their doors to the public.
“We are delighted to be undertaking our most ambitious venture to date, boosting our cultural economy, supporting local artists, and bringing vibrancy and creativity to Sunderland's High Street.
"It is a true pleasure to be the new custodians of this iconic building, and we just can't wait to bring it back to life.”
He added work would now begin on ensuring funding was in place to fulfil the proposals, with thanks sent to all those who supported the purchase of the building.
Hills, once of Fawcett Street, closed in 2006.