Fremantle’s historic Victoria Hall is set to be reinvented as a hub for creative businesses and community events.
The City of Fremantle has given local firm Spacemarket a two-year licence over the heritage-listed hall, starting from 1 November.
Spacemarket has developed an impressive record of activating vacant properties like the old Myer and Spotlight buildings by renting them out as low-cost offices and workshops.
Spacemarket’s Kate Hulett said she’d had her eye on Victoria Hall for a long time.
“I was particularly passionate about retaining it as a community space, so I’m very keen to ensure that we deliver on that and open it up for the community,” Ms Hulett said.
“There will be six offices which we’ll rent out to creative service businesses like designers, architects, event planners and that sort of thing.
“The main hall we’ll open up for short-term rentals for community events such as dance classes, weddings, school performances, knitting clubs – anything you can think of that you need a space for.
“We’re just asking at the moment for people to fill in a little online form so we can get an idea of what people are looking for. Initially we want to fill up the office spaces and then we want to program in those re-occurring events.”
Spacemarket’s most high profile activation projects have been the retail developments Many 6160 in the old Myer building in Kings Square and Many 2.0 in the Spotlight building at Westgate Mall.
They’ve also found homes for dozens of small creative businesses in places like the old Fremantle police station barracks, a disused brewery in North Fremantle and a former child care centre on Quarry Street.
Ms Hulett said Victoria Hall would be a perfect fit for the local film industry, in line with the Fremantle Council’s Film Friendly City policy.
“What we’re looking at doing is ensuring we have a space in Fremantle that is useable by film businesses, production companies and so on, to have somewhere to film, somewhere to meet or somewhere to show films,” she said.
“We’re working with the council on that aspect, but also just ensuring that we have spaces for small creative businesses in our city.”
People interested in using Victoria Hall can lodge an Expression of Interest by clicking here.
