The Observer Building, Hastings (Phase 1b)

The project will support the full redevelopment of the 4,000 sqm Observer Building in Hastings, which has been empty and increasingly derelict for 35 years, into a highly productive mixed-use building, creating new homes, jobs and enterprise space.

The Observer Building will include leisure and retail uses on the lower three floors, a wide range of workspaces including studios, offices and open space, 16 capped-rent flats and a public roof terrace and bar with sea, castle and town views.

The scale, ambition and connectivity of this community-led local redevelopment will help to transform the fortunes of the immediate area and the wider Hastings town centre.

Investment in the Observer Building, Hastings

The Observer Building project has also been allocated £1.75m from the Growing Places Fund (Observer Building, Hastings (Phase 1a)) in order to support the renovation of the lower four floors of the building. Phases 1a and 1b of the project will be brought forward to the same delivery timetable.

Award of additional GBF funding

A new GBF prioritised pipeline was established to support projects experiencing cost increases due to the impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic and Brexit or due to high inflation levels, or seeking to extend the original project to support further phases of an existing project was agreed by the Strategic Board in October 2022.

The project was included on the new GBF project and the award of an additional £315,000 GBF was approved by the Accountability Board on 25 November 2022. 

£85m of investment to East Sussex, Essex, Kent, Medway, Southend and Thurrock

The Getting Building Fund focuses on projects that can progress quickly and that will stimulate and better integrate economies in some of the most economically impacted and COVID-affected parts of the South East.

£85m of Getting Building Fund investment has been secured, enabling delivery of 34 projects across East Sussex, Essex, Kent, Medway, Southend and Thurrock.

Find out more here