The planned renovation and development of Alexandra Palace into a media campus is likely to cost at least£50m and could be as much as£100m.
The planned renovation and development of Alexandra Palace into a media campus is likely to cost at least £50m and could be as much as £100m.

A three-month consultation period has been undertaken with the dual purpose of finding potential investors and discussing the scope of what companies would use the historic site for.

Alexandra Palace must remain within the public domain but, according to Dan Bone, company director of regeneration specialist CIVIX - the firm that is carrying out market testing: 'This will only work as a commercial venture and market research has shown that there is interest.'

The aim is to create a media cluster focusing on broadcast media education and training, with workspace for small and medium-sized businesses and freelancers, open learning promoting 'media literacy' and access to archives. Bone added: 'In the knowledge age that we live in today, there's a great opportunity for Alexandra Palace to reinvent itself.'

It's believed that approximately £30m to £40m will be required to renovate the dilapidated 'people's palace'.

BBC head of heritage Robin Reynolds believes that the renovation project will attract investment by the end of 2006. 'There will be support from the BBC, but that will not come financially. I'm sure that both BBC training and BBC archives would be interested in looking at a proposition such as this,' he said.

A committee to steer the project, Media Campus Development Group, is being set up and will be based at the Royal Academy of Engineering.

The Alexandra Palace site is jointly owned by the Alexandra Charitable Trust and Haringey council.

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