As we head towards the summer opening of Leah’s Yard, following its impressive £6m renovation, we spoke to co-founder Tom Wolfenden to find out more about the ambitious plans for the upstairs studios, workshops and office spaces…
Set on Sheffield’s Cambridge Street, and nestled in the Heart of the City development, the former 19th Century little mesters works, one of Sheffield’s most important heritage buildings, is edging ever-closer to an exciting new future that will both honour and celebrate its rich industrial heritage.
The courtyard and ground floor will be occupied by resident retail businesses, with popular Sheffield artist Pete McKee, award-winning speciality beer shop Hop Hideout and plant and homeware store Gravel Pit already confirmed as its first tenants.
With 13 total retail spaces available for independent businesses, more tenants are expected to be announced soon, along with their plans for regular events in the courtyard to be held throughout the year.
These headline grabbing announcements have been well-publicised, but perhaps less has been made of their plans for the upper floors, which will be given over to beautiful studios, workshops and office spaces available for local businesses who want to form part of this unique community.
With the Rockingham Group’s James O’hara (Public, Picture House Social, The Foresters) spearheading the retail side of things, his Leah’s Yard partner, Tom Wolfenden, will use his wealth of experience navigating Sheffield’s business community to help to incubate businesses upstairs, integrating them with the thriving mix of retailers that will live downstairs, making Leah’s Yard such an exciting prospect as a place to work as well as socialise.
The upstairs floors boast 20 different studios, ranging from space for a team of 16 down to four people spaces, which either come furnished or unfurnished, depending on the tenant’s requirements.
“When we originally saw Leah’s Yard mentioned, myself and James were like, we’re gonna do this right and we’re gonna smash it, even though it’s a massive project.”
The spaces are some of Sheffield’s most unique and characteristic studios. Unlike conventional offices, every space has a character and charm of its own, steeped in history and each with its own story to tell.
Tom’s own story includes experience fostering an amazing business community at Sheffield Tech Parks in the Cooper Buildings – the tech and digital workplace – which has been a real breeding ground and haven for start-ups and small businesses.
Telling unLTD what is important when it comes to getting the right mix in a co-working space, Tom said: “I’ve run workspaces for probably 15 years now, including commercial workspaces and industrial sheds, as well as running The Workstation in the showroom, which was a similar kind of project to Leah’s Yard.
“It sounds cliched, but the most important thing in my experience is that you work with nice people that you can introduce to each other and they get on and naturally form a community, genuinely forming friendships through the place that they work.
“We’ll help foster that community by holding tenant events, and each tenant can use the yard after hours, if they’ve got a preview or a product launch, or they just want to show some clients around.
“We just want this to be like a great place to work. It’s in the city centre; It’s part of the heart of the city and you’re above all of the good stuff you’ve already been reading about.”
By not being tied to any sector Tom hopes to attract a diverse mix of businesses, and by pricing the units reasonably (units start from £500) they hope to accommodate a wide range of independents.
Tom said: “The way we’ve priced these is not to undercut or compete with anybody, but there’s people out there in pretty grotty offices, paying not inconsiderable amounts of rent, so we want to offer another option.
“We’re charging what we need to charge to make Leah’s sustainable for the long term rather than profiteering from it.”
“The pricing starts at £500, and that’s dependent on whether the business wants it furnished or not. The key message is, that if you’re using an office, you’re paying rent somewhere, but if you pay rent here, you’re helping to maintain the sustainability of one of Sheffield’s most prized heritage assets.”
Over 50 people have been working onsite at Leah’s Yard for the last seven-years, helping to preserve that heritage. In that time, they have replaced all the windows with frames made in Hillsborough and fitted locally fabricated staircases. Stonemasons have also relayed all the cobbles, at times reusing cobbles from elsewhere in the project, so every effort has been made to preserve the heritage wherever possible.
The vibe inside will be industrial and hark back to the building’s past, but also provides modern amenities and custom desks, sourced from local makers. This attention to detail in restoring the building’s heritage, along with the project to restore it and its long and storied past, will be celebrated within the grounds of the building.
“It sounds cliched, but the most important thing in my experience is that you work with nice people that you can introduce to each other and they get on and naturally form a community, genuinely forming friendships through the place that they work.”
Tom explains: “Each room has got a story; whether that’s from what they found when we were building it or what it used to be. There’s going to be so many people asking so many questions, and we want to package it all up in a really nice hardbound book with loads of photos.
“We’ve already had Rob Nicholson from Pedalo photography coming down to take photos all through the stages, in order to get some shots of the people that worked on it, so we can tell their story and listen to what they have to say.
“We’ve also got audio recordings and transcript from a university project we did with two students who found a number of people that used to work here, so we’ve got the story of the people who used to work here too.
“We’ve got all this data, and we want to package it all in a book because it’s not a museum. We want to make it relevant and future facing, because yes, it’s a historical asset, but it’s not Abbeydale Industrial Hamlet, we’re not walking around saying this is where someone worked, or this is where this was made. We want to be able to say, if you want to know the history, here’s this beautiful book and pull those threads through that way.
“It’s coming back full circle to that idea of new industry versus old industry.”
Tom and James haven’t taken the importance of the site lightly, and while the industry inside won’t be exactly the same as what was once there, it’s history will be preserved. Tom said: “If you look at the old insurance maps from hundreds of years ago, the whole city centre was built around places like this. All where John Lewis’ was, all down Cambridge Street, there were all these little works, and this is the last remaining example, which is important to us to respect.
“When we originally saw Leah’s Yard mentioned, myself and James were like, we’re gonna do this right and we’re gonna smash it, even though it’s a massive project.
“We’re not walking into this naively, thinking it’s going to fill and be perfect straightaway, but by bringing people around and seeing them awestruck, that’s kind of nice. It reinforces what a good project it’s going to be.
“It’s a good news story for the city, and an important part of the rebirth of the city centre.”
For more information on Leah’s Yard and the office space available head to leahsyard.com.
