What’s happening Newcastle’s most vibrant business centre?
Mix of new and old: the modern Kiln building, historic Clock Tower cafe
Our frontage: an 1860s factory, refurbished as modern loft space
Office interior: character from the old brickwork, updated with style
Graffiti art: one of the murals in our art project
Cinema shoot: our cobbled bank as a location
A FORMER investment banker is treading into company expansion territory as the runaway success of his trendsetting trainer company has fuelled a move to new premises.
SoleHeaven has been supplying collectors with their kicks for two years from Tynemouth but now the company has signed on the dotted line to rent part of the Ford building at creative media hub Hoults Yard in Byker, Newcastle.
The company’s team of four – and thousands of retro trainers – will make the move into new 900 sq ft office at Hoults Yard, which was formerly the Tyneside Pottery Malings and has been in the Hoults family for generations, in July.
Dale Parr set up SoleHeaven after leaving the world of finance to follow his sole passion in the North East and is now celebrating the firm’s growth and second birthday with a new office.
SoleHeaven managing director Dale Parr said: “Following the success SoleHeaven has experienced, we needed to find a larger property for the growing stock and number of employees. The move forms one phase of our new development plan.
“After hearing about Hoults Yard while in an art gallery in Ouseburn, I knew the property would be perfect. The place has a great buzz about it.
“Finding our new site wasn’t an easy job because of the logistics of our stock intake. As our company is based online it relies upon large stock deliveries so we required a street level office with easy access to air, rail and road networks. Being a former haulage yard, Hoults Yard has the infrastructure already in place for the demands of our business. The site ticked every box.”
Hoults Yard managing director Charlie Hoult said: “SoleHeaven is another coup for the yard, and joins a number of like minded companies based here.
“From picture framer Bruce Reid, curtain maker Nicola Fionda to furniture restorer Richard Zabrocki, SoleHeaven will be neighbour to a cluster of fashion and furnishing firms.
“There are also a number of online retailers already set up at Hoults Yard, who like Dale, saw the huge benefits of the yard’s ability to provide safe storage for stock with an adjacent office.
“This sign-up proves that Hoults Yard is a very adaptable space and the durability of the buildings, architecture and accessibility to transport networks are a huge draw for many businesses.”
At present all business is channelled through SoleHeaven’s website: www.soleheaven.com, which was designed by Newcastle digital company Orange Bus.
However, SoleHeaven wants to expand its business beyond the online market and the new premises will allow the team to encourage North East sneaker lovers to pop in and buy trainers from their Byker office.
SOFTWARE developer hedgehog lab is breaking into global markets after becoming one of few North East companies to be in the planning stages of creating a razor sharp application (apps) for the Apple iPad.
The business, which was set up three years ago by Sarat Pediredla and Mark Foster and operates out of creative business hub Hoults Yard, Newcastle, has one of its two IT programmes ready for the iPad.
Hoults Yard managing director Charlie Hoult said: “’The market for iPhone apps is exploding and several players at the yard are transforming their service delivery by adopting the technology. With the iPad coming to UK, I’m reckoning we will see a lot more businesses that are spawned from eBooks to automation tools.”
Solomon is a web-based CRM and contact management system which allows businesses to easily track customer relationships and conversations, will soon be available to download by anyone with a newly purchased iPad.
And both Solomon and fixx – an issue tracker that helps small businesses track and deliver projects on-time – developed by hedgehog lab are already available for the iPhone and iPod Touch to help small businesses with customer relationship management (CRM) and project management.
Both applications bring a revolutionary approach to the issues small businesses face in the modern business environment and are now being used by hundreds of clients, spanning the world.
Sarat said: “hedgehog lab was born out of my observations and frustrations from working within the technology industry. I realised that there was a huge gulf in the market for a product that was user friendly and based around the small business’ needs.
“We have recently had our second application, Solomon for iPhone made live on the App store, and I am confident that this simple-to-use web-based CRM system could with the iPhone application, help many companies.
“I am delighted that both our software products are now available on the iPhone, and we couldn’t have achieved this without the hard work and talent of the entire team.
“Following on from our success, we have plans for expansion over the coming year from recruiting new team members, moving to larger offices within Hoults Yard, which is a fantastic base for us as there are so many likeminded companies based here, to more software appearing on the iPhone and iPad market.”
The team of five, who make up hedgehog lab, is one of the latest up and coming companies to have joined the growing art and innovation community at Hoults Yard.
ENDS
Photo caption: hedgehog lab founders: (l-r) Mark Foster and Sarat Pediredla
For more information go to http://hedgehoglab.com/
One of the themes I’ve been exploring recently with regard to Hoults is ‘what happens “beyond office space”?’
One answer is that there are already some 10 bands that use the yard to rehearse. But we don’t have a performance space.
If you consider elsewhere… UK or worldwide… the creative hubs offer performance space – whether art, music, combined, freeform.
Warp Records are celebrating their 20th birthday by returning to their birthplace of Sheffield. Check that web page out here. For property watchers, it’s interesting that they are being hosted by Urban Splash at their Park Hill Flats development!
And, on the day that Newcastle launches its very own TEDx – a session for live lectures… it’s also nice to see spin-out action from New York’s MOMA with a Long Island outreach venue that looks super-cool: PS1. Check it’s summer music line-up here… (Also an art-architectural stunner!)
Who knows where we might take things at the Yard? There is a significant amount of understandable compliance required for fire regs, loos, alcohol licensing… but these things aren’t, I hope, insurmountable.
Certainly, I met the band DirtyBirthday last night at the yard rehearsing in Rob Colling’s studio space.
Do drop me a line if you feel you have some input…
The Mandrake Club, a London networking group at Adam Street Club, hosted their monthly session this week with Feargal Sharkey explaining his new role at UK Music. There are lessons for creative industries across the UK in his message.
Amazingly, for the Undertones star from Northern Ireland – perhaps most famous for writing Teenage Kicks – he is the head of this new government quango to support the music industry.
Feargal talked elequently about the need for a collaborative approach across historic industry divides as the music industry faces the assaults of piracy, digital convergence, MySpace and international competition.
It’s a big political challenge to bring rival groups together – and also to link with the likes of the Internet Service Providers and the peer-to-peer music sharing sites. Feargal talked passionately about how unprecedented these joint discussions have been and how positively they are being engaged with. (Clearly it helps if you are one of seven children yourself and used to politics from a Northern Irish context!)
Feargal has commissioned new research amongst teenagers to understand their love of music (83% said they couldn’t do without music, only 60% said they couldn’t live without their mobile phone!). He has recruited heavyweight industry support (his chairman, Andy Heath, founded Beggar’s Banquet records – Feargal has taken to the stage to sing Teenage Kicks with Culture Secretary Andy Burnham on guitar!)
UK Music’s members include the Association of Independent Music (AIM), theBritish Academy of Composers & Songwriters (BAC&S), BPI (British Recorded Music Industry) Limited, the MCPS-PRS Alliance (The Alliance), the Music Managers Forum (MMF), the Music Publishers Association Limited (MPA), theMusicians Union (MU) and Phonographic Performance Limited (PPL).
