Last updated 12:36, Tuesday, 19 August 2008

A FORMER Barrow nightclub is to get a new £1m lease of life.

MASTERMINDS: Kerry Kolbe, left, and Loren Slater, right, formerly of Shoreline Films, will be the main tenants of the refurbished Cooke’s Building in Abbey Road, Barrow

The 1875-built Cooke’s Building, next to the Duke of Edinburgh in Abbey Road, is getting government help to transform it into a media and arts centre.

Work is set to start next spring on the centre, which will also cater for community organisations. A huge boost for the scheme came after the planned lead tenant, Creative Studios Cumbria, bid for and won a £650,000 government grant under the Community Asset Fund. The fund backs projects to refurbish redundant local authority-owned properties so they can be used by community based groups.

The grant will be used to refurbish two floors of the building – currently covered by a giant Love Barrow banner.

Val Holden, a regeneration officer at Barrow Borough Council, said the Community Asset scheme recognised that nationally there were a lot of community groups “doing fantastic work in premises that are not up to scratch”.Mrs Holden said: “The council also has some money from the Heritage Lottery to do restoration on the historic details.”

She said the council figure was likely to be several hundred thousand pounds, making a first phase regeneration cost of around £1m.

She said: “It will be extremely smart looking and some parts of the inside will be quite spectacular too, we hope.”

Creative Studios Cumbria is run by Kerry Kolbe and Loren Slater, formerly of Shoreline Films, who also run Signal Films of Ulverston. Neither was available to comment.

The makeover is part of a wider £2m Barrow Borough Council programme to revitalise parts of Abbey Road. The aim is to create more jobs and economic activity as part of the Gateway Townscape Heritage Initiative.

Owners of buildings including Wetherspoons, which has the empty Victorian floors above the Furness Railway pub, are being told they will get generous grants if they can refurbish property for business use such as offices or retail.

Owners of Oxford Chambers, next to Cooke’s Building, the House of Lords, Ramsdens Wine Bar and the old Legends nightclub in Ramsden Square, are being offered grants to bring buildings back to life. The giant Cooke’s Building has four floors and a basement and was originally a furniture store.

Its last use was as the Sub Zero nightclub and it has also been used as a pool hall.

Special regeneration and community grants are being pooled to resurrect the building which stands on Barrow’s most elegant street almost opposite the stylish new Emlyn Hughes House office block.

Mrs Holden is appealing for anyone with pictures and historical information about Cooke’s Building to get in touch with her at the town hall.

She said: “We have to replace everything as it was, especially on the front outside.”

Barrow Borough Council paid club owner Roger McKimm £180,000 for the building in 2006 and has appointed John Coward Architects of Cartmel to oversee the project.

Some work has already been done to make the roof sound.