IT super-highway to spearhead Nottingham's investor event

VISITORS to the Invest in Nottingham day this Thursday will be treated to a triple bill of major development project launches.

One, in the city council's new head offices at Loxley House, will officially announce the burgeoning Southside business district, while a second will showcase Westfield's latest plans for the Broadmarsh shopping centre.

But the third event will launch the new 90,000 sq ft fibre-optic data centre called The Portal, in British Rail's former national IT centre in Wilford Lane.

You can already hear visitors mulling this one over.

Interesting name, The Portal. Sounds like a Dr Who episode. Whatever it is, what's it got to do with economic advantage and decisions to invest in Nottingham?

John Taylor, business development adviser for The Portal, has the answers. The Portal, he says, is the UK's largest centre for the storage, pooling and transmission of national and international high-speed data.

From next spring, the building will also be offering an additional 200,000 sq ft of office space for digital and data-based businesses.

The Portal, he says, is ripe for the clustering of small data-heavy businesses such as computer game developers.

In summary, if your company relies on the rapid transmission of serious amounts of digital data, then being physically located in this data nexus, or even in the city where it is located, is going to give you competitive advantage.

"Until recently, everybody had forgotten about this place," he told the Post. "It's a hidden gem!"

Nottingham, said Mr Taylor, has to "reinvent" itself and investment in its data infrastructure will be one method by which the city creates an edge over its competitors.

If visitors to this week's second Invest in Nottingham event want to see other examples of the city's new post-industrial strengths, they should not be disappointed. Guided tours of the city's key investment areas will place due emphasis on the success of the bio-tech and science innovation sector (BioCity, the University of Nottingham Innovation Park, the Medipark site) and the growing green-tech cluster (No.1 Nottingham Science Park, the Innovation Park).

Computer game development, which has been bubbling up here in the past few years, also took a major stride towards greater recognition when international name Crytek moved its UK head office into the Southreef development in Canal Street this year.

On Thursday, a visit to Crytek's office will be included in a detailed tour of the Southside business district.

In Nottingham, Crytek is the new kid on a new block that promises to provide one million square feet of grade A office space.

However, the team behind this year's Invest in Nottingham is emphatic that the Nottingham offer is not solely about property availability. One of the key missions that Team Nottingham has set itself is to help mould perceptions of the city for the better.

"That part isn't about corporate Nottingham at all – it's about what people understand Nottingham is and can be," said one adviser to Invest in Nottingham. "To change that we have to change perceptions of the city, revealing our 'best kept secrets' as well as showing that we're open for business."

Open days by the likes of Savills, Weavers Wines and Nottingham Girls' High School will play their part in this lifestyle approach.

But so will the lure of cultural attractions, a point underlined by the event's launch at the £19m art gallery Nottingham Contemporary.

This time last year the gallery was still a building site. Now it's regarded as an ace card in Nottingham's regeneration programme – and another example of how the city is reinventing itself.

Indeed, the gallery is just one of several major projects completed in the year since the first invest event.

Team Nottingham hopes that visitors such as venture capitalists and corporate representatives will be duly impressed by the concrete manifestations of Nottingham's spirit of get up and go.

Major projects finished since last year include the University of Nottingham's Geospatial Building, the Antenna and Confetti creative centres, and Nottingham Trent University's regeneration of its Newton and Arkwright buildings.

Meanwhile, the start of the redevelopment of Nottingham Midland Station is imminent.

As last year, Invest in Nottingham is a private-sector led initiative, with local authority support.

The event has been shaped by a board chaired by accountant Roger Summeton, of Nottingham Development Enterprise. Some 40 Nottingham businesses are now supporting it.

This second event took a high-powered team to Centre Point, including the county's Lord Lieutenant Sir Andrew Buchanan, city council chief executive Jane Todd, Notts County Cricket Club chief executive Derek Brewer, and Alex Gourlay, managing director of Alliance Boots.

As was intended, the event led to some new contacts and business relationships with investors.

International architects Benoy, for example, are now in talks about a potential project in China.

Graham Cartledge CBE, chairman of Benoy, told the Post: "Nottingham means business – with a dynamic, world-class economy worth £12.1bn and the skills and expertise to match. It is the perfect competitive base for international businesses like Benoy. Nottingham has a story to tell and I am honoured to support the Invest in Nottingham Campaign. Invest in Nottingham Day, London 2010 was a great success.

"As a direct result of the event, we are now in talks with a major High Street retailer on a prospective joint initiative in China."

Nottingham's business and civic leaders hope that the many networking opportunities on Thursday will also produce sparks that lead to solid business interest.

What's new this year? One of the big corporate names involved in this year's event is Alliance Boots, which will be unveiling new opportunities at 100 acres of development land in Beeston.

Close to the University of Nottingham, the land has been touted for possible hi-tech/science-led investment. Meanwhile, another new initiative since last year is the Invest in Nottingham Club, which is actively recruiting supporters to spread the good news about the city's opportunities.

Some 40 members have signed up so far, the club being administrated by Nottingham Development Enterprise.

"We saw last year's Invest in Nottingham as a dry run for this year's event and I'm delighted to see that so many more local businesses have come on board," said Jane Todd.

"We've learned a few lessons about running the event, but there are also many more developmental and infrastructure projects to show visitors, which means we're offering them a more ambitious event to show why Nottingham is such a good city for investment."

Is this a good time to invest in Nottingham? "The feeling is that the economy is bouncing back, there is money around and people are looking to invest," said Mr Summeton.

At The Portal, John Taylor is confident that it's the right time for Nottingham to begin developing a bright new economic sector in gaming and digital creativity.

"What I'll be saying on Thursday is that it's a matter of historical record that economic development follows infrastructure," he said. "We've had canals and shipping, then rail and airports. Now, in the 21st century, the new development infrastructure is ICT."