BE Offices are providing free-of-charge office space to the City of London’s cultural district Culture Mile, this summer as part of the Lord Mayor’s Culture and Commerce Taskforce Create in the City initiative.
Chaired by the Lord Mayor of the City of London and led by the City of London Corporation and Culture Mile, the Culture and Commerce Taskforce, Create in the City is part of a series of pilot projects recommended in the Fuelling Creative Renewal report, published earlier this year. It aims to repurpose commercial space as creative workspace hubs, providing flexible spaces fit for a post-pandemic world.
The partnership will allow Culture Mile to use the space as a hub for creative collaboration, throughout the summer.
Located on Beech Street, BE Offices Barbican is right at the heart of Culture Mile, the City’s cultural district, which runs from Farringdon to Moorgate. Led by the City of London Corporation, along with its partners Barbican, Guildhall School of Music & Drama, London Symphony Orchestra and Museum of London, the five partners are together are creating a new destination for creativity, innovation, and learning in the north-west corner of the Square Mile.
This is the second testbed project to be announced by the Culture and Commerce Taskforce this month, with NDT Broadgate, – a major new Artist Development Complex opening in the City of London in July, offering rehearsal rooms, design studios, and offices for artists to use throughout the year.
Lord Mayor of the City of London, William Russell, said: “This partnership between Culture Mile and BE Offices is exactly the sort of initiative that we need to start to bring people back to the City and help the area once again to be a dynamic, vibrant place to be.
“Sitting alongside a diverse mix of SMEs, start-ups and growing businesses from across different sectors, this partnership will explore how physical spaces can provide an opportunity to truly share knowledge and skills across the commercial, creative and civic sectors, growing a deeper relationship across sectors that will really boost London’s economic growth, particularly supporting the area’s post-Covid recovery.”
The Lord Mayor visited BE’s Barbican offices in May as part of a series of events to mark the reopening of indoor hospitality, cultural and heritage institutions in the Square Mile. Alderman William Russell met with BE’s Finance Director and co-founder Simon Rusk to view the space on offer to the Culture Mile team as well as taking the opportunity to see how BE is enabling a safe return to office space in the City with a comprehensive set of measures in place to make the buildings across its portfolio COVID-secure.
Derren Jennings, Sales Director at BE Offices commented: “Being situated right in the middle of the Culture Mile, our Beech Street building could not be more perfectly located for the Culture Mile project team, and we are delighted to be able to offer them a temporary home. This partnership will test the range of mutual benefits that a collaborative model can offer both creative and commercial organisations and we are only too happy to support an initiative which seeks to secure the City’s creative future and accelerate recovery.”
Alongside animating the whole district with imaginative collaborations and events, delivering major enhancements to the streets and improving wayfinding, Culture Mile will be working with organisations from across the City to build a world-class hub of creativity, innovation and learning that delivers economic growth and social mobility for London.
