No. 2 Royal Avenue, Belfast - Options and Feasibility Study

We contributed to and co-authored a Feasibility Study seeking to identify uses cases for the sustainable long-term operation of No. 2 Royal Avenue (henceforth 2RA) as a creative and cultural hub for the city. This work was carried out alongside CHL Consulting.
The project involved a combination of desk-based research, and stakeholder engagement including interviews and workshops held in the building led by our Strategic Communications team. A key consideration of this work was ensuring that the end use did not just meet the identified cultural needs of the city and its artistic practitioners and consumers, but could be selfsustaining going forward, without requiring ongoing subsidy.

As part of this project, we also incorporated some of the emerging results from the Artist Workspace Study, which engaged a representative survey sample of artists and cultural organisations across the city. This work was also undertaken on behalf of Belfast City Council at the same time as the 2 RA feasibility. This major study of artists working in the city provided valuable insight into the needs and preferences for creative and cultural workspace, performance and rehearsal space across the city.
The report went on to explore models of governance, identity and brand, and governance and financial models, providing clear recommendations on each of these subjects. Finally, the report outlined a number of key steps to the successful delivery of a creative hub and identified potential funding streams to realise the vision set out in the report.

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Project sheet