New creative hub opens its doors in Cardiff

A new creative hub for freelancers and start-up businesses is to open its doors in Cardiff this month.

Located on Curran Embankment, the building is a vibrant and inspirational workplace for the city’s creative professionals and companies.

It’ll be occupied by a mixture of tenants, including fashion brands, music producers, illustrators, bicycle builders, graphic designers and web developers.

The first businesses to sign up include Liam Barratt Illustration, Aura Lab (illustration/visualisation), Heist Chocolate, Imtatyaz Qassim (fashion), Rowanvale Books, The Creative Thinking Company, Movement in Mind and Hubbard Films.

Bristol-based company Meanwhile Creative is behind the project. Since 2011, it’s been transforming neglected commercial venues into low-cost workspaces for freelancers and entrepreneurs.

Jack Doran, marketing manager at the firm, said: “The important thing is that we make it accessible, prices will start at only £100/month, so anyone sat at home using their dining room table as an office can give their business its own space.”

“We’re not like other commercial property companies, we’re here to meet the needs of self-starters and ambitious young people. We don’t tie anyone into five year terms, we know our tenants need flexibility to grow and shrink their commitments, which is why we offer rolling contracts.”

A partnership formed with Talis Capital is helping the project and its business model take off. The company has plans to open more creative spaces across the UK over the next few years, with a focus on technology.

Fred Wyatt, founder of the space, explained: “In Bristol our buildings have always been full and our research shows that there is also huge nationwide demand for what we do.

“We can’t wait to offer workspace to creatives across the country and with Talis we’ll be able to enter multiple cities each year. Our technology platform will be key to efficiently managing thousands of underlying tenants.”

“A technology platform will allow Meanwhile to handle tenant on-boarding, billing, facilities management and meeting space bookings, all serving a diverse community that includes hundreds of small businesses, creatives and entrepreneurs.”

Image source: Markus Spiske