There are projects that are interesting, and then there are projects that genuinely matter to a city. The refurbishment of the Coronation Building on Newcastle’s Quayside falls firmly into the second category. Arcas Building Solutions, one of the ten specialist businesses within the Northern Bear group, is currently on site delivering one of the most technically complex and culturally significant construction projects in the North East right now.
What Is Quayside Studios?
The Coronation Building is a Grade II listed building on Newcastle’s Quayside. When the work is complete, it will become home to Quayside Studios, a professional music production facility backed by Live Theatre, Warner Music UK, and Generator, with specialist studio contractor SW6 One working alongside Arcas on site.
The project has a value of around £1.5 million and is targeted for completion this summer. It has already attracted significant attention, with coverage from Chronicle Live, Bdaily, and Cultured North East, and recognition from Jenny Hartley MBE of Newcastle City Council. A delegation of Japanese artists and music industry representatives from the Generator music exchange have also visited the site before the doors have even opened. That kind of interest, at this stage, says a lot about what Quayside Studios is set to mean for the region.
What Arcas Are Delivering
The scope of work is substantial. Arcas are carrying out a complete strip-out and internal reconfiguration of the multi-storey building to create a layout purpose-built for professional audio production. On completion, the building will house four recording studios, a live room, a photography and film studio, two podcast suites, and a multimedia and educational suite.
Beyond the studio spaces, the brief also includes replacing the glass facade to the rear elevation, forming new openings to accommodate the new layout, and delivering an aesthetic uplift across the whole building. All of that has to be achieved within a protected structure. External windows, render, and main staircases cannot be touched. Every decision on site has to work around those constraints from the outset.
Why This Project Is Far From Straightforward
Working inside a Grade II listed building changes how you approach almost every aspect of a construction project. Materials have to be moved through specific routes. Services have to be carefully routed to avoid affecting protected fabric. And because the building sits alongside residential properties, all works have to stay within standard site hours, with noise and disruption managed throughout.
Arcas are responsible for the building fabric, communal areas, infrastructure routing, and listed building compliance. SW6 One takes over within the studio environments themselves, handling acoustic design, technical fit-out, and specialist installations. Managing the handover points between those two scopes cleanly is one of the more important coordination challenges on a project like this.
The acoustic performance requirements add another layer of precision. The studios are being built to achieve sound isolation ratings of 60 to 65 dB, with reverberation times specified room by room. The vocal booth is targeted at 0.14 seconds. The live room at 0.27 seconds. Achieving those figures inside a listed building requires construction methods including decoupled wall and ceiling assemblies, floating floor systems, and silenced HVAC with isolated fans, all integrated around the building’s existing structural constraints.
Experience That Cannot Be Improvised
Projects like this are not won or delivered without a track record. Arcas have previously delivered refurbishments at Tyneside Cinema and Alnwick Playhouse, both of which built their experience of working in heritage buildings with operational complexity and tight constraints. That experience feeds directly into how they are managing Quayside Studios.
It is a strong reminder of what specialist commercial construction expertise looks like in practice, and exactly why Arcas are a business we are proud to have within the Northern Bear group.
A Project Worth Watching
When Quayside Studios opens, it will give the North East a genuinely industry-standard music production facility. The kind of space that can attract professional artists and producers to the region, and support the local creative sector at a meaningful level.
You can read more about the project in detail in the Arcas Building Solutions blog.
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