Silicon Alley, Urban Televillage, Newcastle
Silicon Alley is a flourishing 'urban televillage' which was developed by North East Workspace and is based in the heart of Newcastle upon Tyne in the North East of England. The Silicon Alley project, which has been running for over 20 years now aims to create a sustainable urban televillage for small creative enterprises.
Silicon Alley is made up of a cluster of historic buildings in Pink Lane and Westgate Road in the Grainger Town area of Newcastle. The development of Silicon Alley has completely transformed this part of the city. Pink Lane and Westgate Road now boast a fine array of restored, fully-occupied buildings in the centre of one of Newcastle's key regeneration areas.
How did it do it?
The project began in 1989 when North East Workspace (part of PNE) raised £80,000. A wide range of other financial resources were also utilised by the company to acquire further buildings, including public grants, mortgages, private sponsor funding and re-invested income. All in all £3M has been raised.
North East Workspace purchased the derelict buildings in Pink Lane and Westgate Road and gradually re-developed the area to create a business incubator site for small and start-up enterprises that provides purpose-built managed workspace and excellent e-business and support facilities at an affordable cost.
Silicon Alley comprises of 6 fully refurbished buildings, offering in total over 60,000 sq ft of lettable managed workspace. Every workspace has unrestricted access to what has affectionately become known as 'Big Netty': Silicon Alley's 24-hour broadband Internet network connection.
What did it achieve?
The Silicon Alley project has been highly successful in physically and economically regenerating a rundown part of the Grainger Town area in Newcastle. A number of formerly obsolete listed buildings have now been completely restored and converted into modern, purpose-built, state-of-the-art managed workspace units housing almost 70 small and start-up businesses.
Silicon Alley has provided a base for entrepreneurial talent to flourish, and as a result, the local economy in this part of Newcastle has benefited greatly. Over 300 people are employed in the businesses located in Silicon Alley. Silicon Alley has been proven to be sustainable on many levels. In terms of environmental sustainability, a self-contained urban televillage has gradually been formed, which contains both individual business space units and combined business and residential units.
Silicon Alley undeniably provides affordable office space with excellent facilities. Big Netty is one of the key elements of Silicon Alley that continually attracts small and creative business to the site.
North East Workspace, with technology partner TDC, received the One to One North East Regional Business Award in 2000 for Big Netty. In addition, Silicon Alley (7-15 Pink Lane) won a commendation in the shopfront category as part of the Lord Mayor's Design Award in 2001. These external accolades are testament to the continued success of the Silicon Alley project.
One of the projects greatest achievements has been its ability to incubate businesses which have continued to grow once they have moved on. To date around 70 businesses have incubated into the wider economy. In 2006 Pink Lane was recognised as being in the top 10 list of incubators in the world at the annual conference on Best Practice in Science based Incubators in Copenhagen in the general category and the self sustainability category.
