Revival plan for music venue gets crowdfund boost
THE campaign to transform Plymouth’s dilapidated former Millennium nightclub and cinema building into a music venue and business hub has received a £100,000 boost.
A community share offer launched in October has now topped £154,000 after the Community Shares Booster Programme came in with a £100,000 investment.
It means that in less than a month more than half of the minimum target has been met with 117 investors now backing the ambitious project.
The largest by some margin is the Community Shares Booster Programme, a fund run by Power to Change and the Co-operatives UK to support viable share offers of this type.
“They offered us the maximum they can invest,” said Hannah Sloggett, director and co-frounder of Nudge Community Builders, the social enterprise which bought the Union Street building in 2020 and set about bringing it back into use.
“They look across the country at community share offers and if you meet their criteria and it is something they want to support they come forward with investment.”
But dozens of small investors have backed the project too, with people, companies and organisations investing sums ranging from the minimum £50 to £10,000.
One city hotel proprietor, who has asked to remain anonymous, bought £1,000 of shares to be distributed between staff, friends and family. And £1,250 was pledged by 18 investors who clicked straight through to the Crowdfunder page and donated after reading about the project on Business Live’s story on Plymouth Live.
“We have only had one day since we started where we didn’t receive an investment,” said Mrs Sloggett. “We have had regular small investments, and these people will become Nudge members. It shows the level of small investment support we are receiving.”
With 28 days to go until the offer, on the Crowdfunder platform, closes, Nudge is delighted with the amount raised so far, but it still has to raise another £131,000 to hit the minimum £285,000 target needed.
Mrs Sloggett said Nudge is confident that the amount can be raised and said: “We are having a lot of conversations with people and receiving the Booster Programme funding will give other investors confidence. We hope it will unlock others that are thinking of investing large sums of money.”
The shares went on sale to the public on October 11 in a bid to raise up to £520,000 for the regeneration of the former nightclub and cinema building. Nudge says it would be happy with £500,000 but the appeal must hit £285,000 by December 6, 2021, to continue.
Up to £70,000 can be pledged by each individual investor and the shares promise a return of 3.6%.
Nudge is working with partners at London-based workspace developer Eat Work Art, which has already renovated run-down buildings in London and Plymouth, to bring the enormous pile back into use. Nudge bosses hope the first businesses could be operating from the building by mid-2022 as work continues on creating a music venue in the main auditorium. The overall project could cost up to £4m.
Nudge said that by raising £500,000 of community share investment it would enable the repayment of money borrowed to buy the building and go towards having the ground floor of the building in use by 2022.
Nudge said it needs the investment because it was supported in its purchase of the building by the charitable Rank Foundation, which has a long association with the building from its cinema days, and Power to Change, an organisation supporting hundreds of community businesses nationwide.
Nudge said it has already made a “real visible difference to the street, running The Clipper, for which it raised £206,000 from more than 150 investors, The Plot, Union Corner and pop-up street activity. The Crowdfunder page can be found at https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/nudgeshares
Receiving the Booster Programme funding will give other investors confidence HANNAH SLOGGET, NUDGE