4.5 Heart of the City Quarter

Vision

The wealth of activity and energy underpinning the range of projects within the Heart of the City will dramatically transform and revitalise Sheffield’s city centre and reinforce its status as a leading city in the UK.

Development of the Heart of the City Project itself continues with the addition of a new hotel and function or conference suite. Two further public spaces will also be created - Millennium Place and St. Paul’s Square. These will be surrounded by high quality shops and cafes, with prestige offices and apartments above.

With the completion of the NRQ, the range of shopping facilities provided in the city centre will be broadened to make Sheffield the most outstanding shopping destination in the region. The NRQ will see realigned city blocks defined by striking architecture. At the same time, the NRQ will prompt significant historic streetscapes to be upgraded, such as the Barkers Pool and City Hall precincts, and historic buildings to be given new life with innovative reuse schemes.

The NRQ will be the core of the city centre retail activity, catering for all markets, and the hub of a retail spine which extends into the secondary retail areas of the Moor and Castlegate.

The quarter’s role as the cultural centre of Sheffield will also emerge very strongly. An enhanced Tudor Square will become the focus of a vibrant and thriving cultural district, linking into the adjacent theatres and galleries, the Winter Garden and the major events venue at City Hall. Public event spaces and a cafe terrace in Tudor Square will bring activity onto the street.

Each of the various locales within the Heart of the City will sustain a cluster of speciality shops, cafes, bars and restaurants, bringing a vibrant street life to the quarter during the day and well into the evening and night time. Grand urban squares, pocket parks and courtyards created throughout the quarter, developed as part of the public space network of the city, will provide the venues for this activity.

The quarter will also see the restoration of its significant historic buildings. Amongst the flurry of building activity within the quarter, special places which capture the history of the city, such as the Leopold Street group will be carefully preserved.

A series of coordinated public realm improvements will provide the vital visual and pedestrian connections between the distinct precincts of the Heart of the City. Important links to neighbouring city centre quarters and the railway station will also be fostered.

The backdrop and framework for the transformation of the quarter will be a new and cohesive urban form. This will be created through a consistency of architectural quality and public realm design seen throughout all of the major projects taking place within the quarter, serving to visually and spatially bind together its various enclaves. Sheffield’s new architectural idiom - dynamic, contemporary and unique - evidenced throughout each of the city centre quarters, will be displayed in the grandest scale within the Heart of the City.

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