Mipim 2023: 'Anchor' Regional City Regeneration Around Major UK Universities

Regional city centres should use their universities as a launchpad for regeneration, according to commercial real estate leaders, who say they can help drive innovation across communities.

During a debate on urban regeneration and city centre transformation hosted by Avison Young at the Mipim 2023 conference in Cannes, a panel of experts suggested that large cities across the UK were not making enough of their higher education institutions when planning major development projects.

Those on the panel used the example of Newcastle Helix, a landmark 24-acre hybridquarter in the North East city, to explain how city centre redevelopment could be concentrated around universities.

Pat Ritchie, chair of the Government Property Agency and former chief executive of Newcastle City Council, said: “I think the role of universities is fundamental in a lot of cities and that harnessing of university innovation as part of a long-term development. We wouldn’t have done Newcastle Helix, if it hadn’t been absolutely in partnership with the university.

“What makes [the scheme] work is having two national institutes, having the computing school, having the office development and lab development all in one system.”

Ritchie added: “Then you spread that out across the city and permeate that out to look at successful cities in the future. I also think playing to strengths is important.”

Newcastle Helix is a public-private sector partnership between the university, Newcastle City Council and Legal and General. According to its website, the university bought the 24-acre site in 2005 with the City Council and the-then regional development agency, One North East.

The scheme has become a hub for international tech and science businesses, with major tenants across its buildings, including the National Audit Office, which agreed a 10-year lease for the fourth floor at Legal & General's Spark building earlier this year in January.

Another building, the Catalyst, is home to the National Innovation Centre for Ageing and the National Innovation Centre for Data. The Frederick Douglass Centre is also a key part of the University of Newcastle's education provision.

Principal and UK president at Avison Young Nick Walkley agreed that regeneration efforts had to make more of universities and how they could help to shape community regeneration, like Helix.

He said: “Our North American colleagues find it utterly unbelievable that you would not anchor city centre regeneration around a major university being one of the leading actors.

“I studied in Liverpool, and even though the university is in the centre of the city, it could actually be three miles away given the interchange between the two places and that need to reconnect places and centres of activity being really strong.”

According to CoStar analysis, office take-up by regional universities in London has risen sharply in recent years at a time when overall demand has waned.

Non-London universities have taken 380,000 square feet of office space in the capital in the past three years, more than double the 152,000 square feet taken by higher education institutions in the previous three years. Overall London take-up fell by about a third over the same period.