As work commenced on site at the £66 million exhibition centre and hotel in Liverpool today, the Chrysalis Fund announced that it has provided a loan of £8 million towards the exhibition centre element of the project.

This is the third deal for the Chrysalis Fund, which has now agreed loans in excess of £16 million for commercial and industrial property projects throughout the Liverpool City Region.

The Exhibition Centre Liverpool will be capable of hosting large conferences, trade and consumer exhibitions and sports and cultural events on a national and international scale. The new complex, which will also include a four-star hotel, will form part of ACC Liverpool, home to BT Convention Centre and Echo Arena.

It will feature an 8,100 sq m, three-hall exhibition centre which will connect to ACC Liverpool by a pedestrian link bridge, making the venue one of the only purpose-built interconnected arena, convention and exhibition centres in Europe. The exhibition centre is expected to open for business in summer 2015.

Jim Gill, chairman of the Chrysalis Fund said: “This deal is an important milestone for the fund and represents our commitment to invest in high quality urban regeneration schemes in the Liverpool City Region. It is fantastic that the loan will be used towards such an important scheme for the city which will bring about job creation and economic benefits – the two main drivers behind the Chrysalis Fund itself.”

The Chrysalis Fund has committed £3.5 million to enable the redevelopment and expansion of a production facility for an Italian cable manufacturer in Knowsley, helping to create more than 100 jobs in the process. 

Tratos UK already operates from Knowsley, supplying mainly low voltage cables to the power distribution industry. Its intention is to expand into medium voltage cables as well as cables for the off-shore wind industry and for the UK’s expanding railway network.

The Chrysalis loan of up to £3.5 million will help the company to acquire an additional adjacent site for its expansion. The funding will also support the redevelopment and expansion of the production facilities on site. Overall, the project will deliver over 100,000 sq ft of new and refurbished manufacturing capacity.

The Chrysalis Fund has approved a £4.8 million investment toward the redevelopment of the Grade II listed Watson House on Renshaw Street in Liverpool city centre. 

The Chrysalis Fund was set up to support economic regeneration in the city region.  The initiative is backed by the European Investment Bank and European Regional Development Fund under the JESSICA (Joint European Support for Sustainable Investment in City Areas) programme. The Fund is managed by the Igloo Consortium, which is made up of Igloo Regeneration Limited, GVA and RBC Capital Markets and operates in partnership with the Liverpool City Region LEP and the Local Authorities.

The £4.8m investment will be provided to a syndicate of investors organised under the national Business Premises Renovation Allowance scheme. The syndicate will redevelop the vacant Watson House, bringing it back to life and back into economic use, to comprise circa 80,000 sq ft of new Grade A office accommodation, built to BREEAM ‘Very Good’ standard.

Watson House adjoins the former Lewis’s department store which is currently undergoing extensive refurbishment works to provide leisure and retail space, a boutique hotel and office accommodation as part of the wider Central Village masterplan, which has secured high profile tenants including Odeon Cinema and Frankie and Benny’s.

Jim Gill, chair of the Chrysalis Fund, said: “Chrysalis aims to invest where the market currently has no capacity or appetite and in a way that attracts other sources of finance and to invest. Projects like Watson House would not be brought forward if it wasn’t for the ability of this Fund to invest in this way.

“The building will provide high quality office accommodation in the heart of the city centre.  The redevelopment will also provide much needed regeneration for the Lime Street area which acts as a gateway to the city and is often the first impression of Liverpool for visitors when they arrive by train, so the improvement of this particular area is a significant step forward in the regeneration of the city centre.”

Mayor of Liverpool, Joe Anderson, said: “This is great news for Liverpool, and another fantastic example of how we are unlocking vital funds to bring our historic buildings back into use.

“This investment will breathe new life into the Watson Building, creating high quality office space in the heart of our city, providing another dynamic link to Central Village and adding further momentum to our on-going work to regenerate the Lime Street gateway.”

For more information about the Chrysalis Fund go to www.chrysalisfund.co.uk

The North West European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) team has issued a call for Capital Investment projects under Priorities 3 and 4 of its investment framework.

Supported by Liverpool City Region Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP), the call seeks bids in Merseyside (Knowsley, Liverpool, Sefton, St. Helens and Wirral) across three themes:

• Promoting Clean and Sustainable Urban Transport
• Investment in Key Strategic Sites
• Creation of New Workspace

Combined, the £9.8m available is towards the development of new buildings, offices or business units often in areas that have been identified as key sites for construction, as well as projects which contribute to creating a sustainable transport infrastructure.

Alan Welby, LEP Executive Director, said: “This call is great news for the region not only does it address development constraints paving the way for local developers to free up stalled projects but will ultimately help create jobs in the area.

“Allocations will be made with local partners and Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) in line with the City Regions strategic goal to accelerate economic growth across the region.

Alan added: “Alongside initiatives such as Chrysalis, the urban investment fund for the City Region, we are keen to encourage as much private sector led development as possible to create jobs.”

Any organisation interested in the ERDF call opportunity or JESSICA can find more information on the Local Enterprise Partnership website www.liverpoolLEP.org

We would like to thank everybody who attended the official launch of the Chrysalis Fund at the Hope Street Hotel in Liverpool on the 15^th March 2012.

We hope that you found it informative and enjoyable. The feedback that we have received to date has been excellent with a number of developers and investors contacting us for more information and enquiring about investment support for their projects.

A pipeline of potential investments is starting to build but every expression of interest that we receive will be considered, so if you have a development that requires finance and you think that you meet the criteria to benefit from the Chrysalis Fund, please enquire here.

As I said at the launch, the Chrysalis Fund provides a great opportunity for us to kick start some important development projects in the City Region. The Board is looking forward to making some early investments and, in the longer term, expanding the Fund and broadening its scope beyond the initial ERDF prescribed use-classes so that Chrysalis can fulfil its potential to become a primary facilitator of growth for the area.

At the launch, we also introduced this new website, www.chrysalisfund.co.uk. It includes important information about who is involved, how it all works and there is also a form that you can fill in to express an interest in the Fund.

We look forward to hearing from you.

Kind regards

Jim Gill, Chairman of the Chrysalis Fund.

New funding to kick start employment creating projects in Merseyside, the £30m Chrysalis Fund, was officially launched in Liverpool today. Leaders from Liverpool and across the North-West, as well as Fund’s board members, European officials and advisors came together to announce details of the £30m fund aimed at investment in commercial property and regeneration projects across Merseyside over the next three years.