The Multiversity campus for Blackpool and The Fylde College will bring up to 3,000 students and staff into a new five-storey building on Cookson Street in the town centre.
Morgan Sindall won the construction contract for the £65m project after a competitive tendering process through the Pagabo framework last year.
Demolition and clearance of the site will take place in phases over the next nine months, preparing it for construction to start next year.
Demolition of the first houses at the corner of Grosvenor Street, Milbourne Street and Charles Street will start in the coming weeks. Demolition of the remaining site will continue into next year in phases across the site. The majority of properties in the area have now been bought by Blackpool Council, using central government funding. The remaining properties are expected to transfer into council ownership this summer and few remaining residents living in the area are being offered support to find somewhere else to live.
Blackpool Council leader Lynn Williams said: “The Multiversity is a major part of our plans to make Blackpool better, replacing the very poor housing and benefiting the area and town centre. The creation of a new college campus with thousands of students will not only brighten up the area considerably, but it will provide a massive economic boost to the town centre and create more jobs for Blackpool people.”
Alun Francis, chief executive of Blackpool & The Fylde College, said: “It’s really exciting to see the preparatory works for the Multiversity getting underway. This project will regenerate a strategically important part of Blackpool town centre – and it will also launch a new model for delivering more flexible higher education that is better aligned to ‘real world’ market intelligence and student demand. The Multiversity will ultimately provide a range of new routes for learners that will boost local opportunities, social mobility and lead to highly skilled occupations that meet regional needs.”
The Multiversity makes up phase four of Blackpool Council’s £350m regeneration of the Talbot Gateway area around Blackpool North train station, which in total is bringing over 8,000 professional workers and students into the area.
A new 144-bedroom Holiday Inn hotel and restaurant opened last year, alongside a tram-train interchange linking to Blackpool Promenade. A new town centre office for the Department of Works & Pensions (DWP) has brought more than 3,000 government workers into a new office opposite the Multiversity site, while construction has started on a new government office building for an additional 1,100 employees. Plans for another multi-storey car park on King Street are expected to be submitted this year.
The land for the new Multiversity is being acquired with the support of a £9m government grant, while the construction was also awarded £40m from UK government in 2023.
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