City's response to BOXPARK Liverpool has been "overwhelming"says Head of Development

When BOXPARK was thinking about opening its first BOXPARK venue outside the capital, there was nowhere else it could have been other than Liverpool.

BOXPARK Liverpool launched in Cains Brewery Village in the Baltic just over a month ago and Matthew McMillan, head of development for the leisure company, says the response from Liverpool has been phenomenal.

“The response to BOXPARK Liverpool has been overwhelming – its everything we could have hoped for,” he says.

“We’ve got a fantastic site in a vibrant location with a great team there, a group of people who have huge experience working in some of Liverpool’s best hospitality venues and are doing a fantastic job in bringing in amazing talent in terms of the traders and the programme of events.

As the BOXPARK reputation as the go-to venue for the best independent food and drink brands in the UK and an all-day festival of entertainment 365 days a year grew, the demand to grow the business outside London was strong. The only the question was where.

“Following the successes at Shoreditch and Croydon (and latterly Wembley) we received more than 300 enquiries from cities and developers across the world seeking to work with us, but we were always very focused on choosing somewhere which most aligned with our brand values; passionate about independent brands, fiercely proud of local distinctiveness and a place at home with raw industrial architecture. We particularly focused on the top UK cities and personally, I have always loved Liverpool.

“Liverpool is one of the most modern cities and going through a major renaissance, but it also has this amazing rich cultural heritage which is particularly celebrated in music, art and entertainment, which is right at the heart of our identity. The distinctive industrial architecture throughout the city is amazing and the connection between Liverpool’s shipping history and our container architecture was a great fit.

“It’s a nice compact city, you can get around it easily and quickly, which is really helpful, and more than anything else, the people are amazing and love to have a great time.

“It also helped that the Council was very supportive,” Matthew adds. We spoke extensively with the team about the plans in the cities to find the right site – we talked about 10 Streets, and we looked at the waterfront, and leading up to the Knowledge Quarter and city centre sites, but the energy and ambition of the Baltic Triangle and the architecture and history of the Cains brewery site kept drawing us back. We want to align ourselves with places with a rich dense character and where we can have the most impact in helping amplify development plans around us – we want to be a major part of that future.”

“We could see the ambition and potential as far back as 2016, and we have to pay deference to our neighbours, particularly at Camp & Furnace and the Baltic Market, but really all the great entrepreneurs have set up in the Baltic Triangle over the past years and made it was it is. The fantastic local identity meant we always felt the area was fertile for change and growth and we really want to do all we can to support the local aspirations for the Baltic Triangle

“We absolutely recognise the fantastic venues here already and we really want to work alongside, and we have been really delighted with the welcome that they have extended to us. We see ourselves as complementary to all the great things already here and we want to help see the Baltic Triangle keep developing, keep growing, and keep attracting investment and the most exciting businesses to the area that will be good for all of us.

“In particular we are huge supporters of the plans for the new Baltic Station – we’d love to play a part in securing this investment for the city, which would have a transformational impact on this area.”

BOXPARK Liverpool has agreed a 15-year lease with Cains Brewery Village and is championing local independent businesses, through its food and entertainment offering, investing more than £5m into the Baltic Triangle and bringing 150 new jobs.

BOXPARK Liverpool spans 21,000 sq. with nine ‘outstanding’ food traders, central events areas, a food space that holds up to 400 covers, and two bars on the ground floor: “And because everybody loves people-watching there’s a mezzanine, a gaming area, a couple more bars and Beatbox, our late night events space which has an outstanding sound system and can hold events and specialist DJ sets.

“And there’s a beautiful 5,500 sq. ft garden which will go down a storm when the sun shines, with some beautiful sunsets.”

Liverpool is already setting records.

“We’ve had some great nights already with an amazing launch weekend headlined by Girls don’t Sync, but some of the things I love the most is our ability to bring people throughtout the week. The Big Fat Quizbox we did with The Chase’s Dark Destroyer Shaun Wallace mid-week attracted 94 team entries which is the best performing one ever and it went down a storm.

“That’s the kind of thing we want to be doing all the time.”