Florence Institute reaches new heights

Liverpool’s Florence Institute looks is set to draw a crowd of dignitaries at its official ‘Topping Out’ Ceremony on Wednesday 23rd November at 11.00am.

The event highlights the culmination of ten years of work by Purcell Miller Tritton to restore the ‘Florrie’ to multi-functional community use, providing valuable recreational facilities for the city and reinstating the Institute’s external structure, which survived the Second World War but was badly damaged by arson some years ago and has since remained unoccupied.

Dating from 1889, The Institute is the earliest remaining building in Britain to be constructed specifically as a boy’s recreational youth club. The Grade II Listed building was built by Bernard Hall, a former Mayor of Liverpool, in memory of his daughter Florence and comprised a large hall, a gym, boxing facilities and domestic offices.

Following the restoration work, the building will re-open in Spring 2012 to provide a number of flexible uses echoing its original incarnation, including managed workspace, a large performance space, community and social spaces, sports and recreational facilities.

To achieve the substantial funding and level of strategic planning required to achieve the project, the practice carried out extensive research and assisted the trust to produce multiple funding applications. These included successful Stage I and II applications for a Heritage Grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund and applications for European funding.

In preparation for these successful applications, the practice carried out a feasibility study with funding from the Architectural Heritage Fund; put in place temporary work to improve the safety and security of the site; obtained a project planning grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund and prepared a Conservation Management Plan and Access Plan for the building.

Following the securing of funding and our development of Conservation Management and Access Plans for the site, the building’s damaged structure has been preserved and restored as much as possible, with the remainder constructed from scratch to convert it for modern use.

“We are delighted to be involved with helping to secure the future of a much loved Liverpool landmark which we have been working on for over ten years. After many years of hard work and campaigning by the Florence Institute Trust that it is fantastic that the building is finally nearing completion.” Robert Chambers, Associate, Liverpool Studio.