A business consortium has made an audacious bid to transform Plymouth’s waterfront by building a £10million multi-purpose event building and placing a huge retractable dome over the art deco Tinside lido.
The Plymouth’s Ocean Dome (POD) project has been unveiled as bids to buy a 125-year lease on the former tourist attraction called The Dome close.
Plymouth City Council has been seeking buyers for the lease, with a guide price of at least £500,000, and innovative ideas for the site. And they don’t come much more innovative than knocking the 1980s pile down and starting again.
That’s exactly what the team, of as yet unnamed entrepreneurs, behind the Ocean Dome project want to do, having employed top Plymouth architecture firm ADG to come up with a design for a spectacular three-storey curved building, which would fit seamlessly into the Hoe cliff face.
It would be topped with a grass-covered flat roof which effectively extends the Hoe as well as doubling the size of the floor footprint.
The team behind the project, which would be dependent on planning consent if it secured the lease, said the new complex will also include an outdoor concert facility for open-air events, and become the home for a new Sea Horse Trust exhibition.
Other plans would include a mini theatre, licensed bar, restaurant and cafe, wedding venue, TV studio and business venue for companies to hold functions and conferences.
The Plymouth Dome was opened by the Queen in 1989 and attracted more than 2.3million visitors over 15 years before being shut by the council in 2006.
It was then turned into the famous Rhodes @ the Dome eatery, run by the late TV chef Gary Rhodes. But this closed and the building has been empty since the Villa Amaranta restaurant closed in June 2019.
The consortium is also looking at acquiring the art deco lido from Plymouth City Council and starting on the herculean engineering task of enclosing it.
The plans for what are described as Phases Five to Seven of a wide ranging ambition to regenerate a huge section of the waterfront are outlined in the Bid Document for the POD project.
In its bid proposal, the consortium has outlined a phased approach to their plans, and believe the new building replacing The Dome could be constructed within three years of its start date.
From acquiring the lease to constructing a new building at a cost of up to £8million, would account for Phases One to Four.
And the bid document then goes on to outline the consortium’s vision for the Grade II listed Tinside lido, built in 1935 but reopened in 2005 after a £3.4million renovation.
The lido, the document said, is only open to the public from May to September. The consortium wants to extend that by putting a roof over it and heating the enclosure with solar or thermal energy.
It is part of an even wider vision that would see the installation of water slides and diving platforms, plus water taxi drop-off points and even a small pier.
A Spokesman for the POD consortium, said: “When I came to Plymouth 23 years ago; I stood at the end of the Hoe and was disappointed with the view looking at the roof of the existing Dome building.
“Ever since then I have had a clear vision of what should be there; and working with the team at ADG over the past few weeks they have brought that one giant step closer to reality.
“If Plymouth doesn’t do this, then it will be a massive missed opportunity, if it does, it will be a massive step forward for our Ocean City.”
Dale Beeson, director of ADG, has been working on the plans, and said: “The various pedestrian routes currently come to an abrupt stop at the existing building.
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Business Live's South West Business Reporter is William Telford. William has more than a decade's experience reporting on the business scene in Plymouth and the South West. He is based in Plymouth but covers the entire region.
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“Plymouth’s Ocean Dome will address this by actively incorporating these paths into the building itself, therefore providing a fully inclusive and accessible design.
“Our bid has been filed before today’s deadline, and what makes our plans bold and imaginative is that we are a local team looking to deliver an exciting new development that will draw in local people and visitors alike to this fantastic destination on Plymouth Hoe.”
The bid document said that Phase Five represents raising the funding for the domed roof over Tinside pool so Phase Six could go ahead.
This, it said, is the scheme to “Build a retractable dome roof over Tinside pool (solar/thermal heating). A ‘dome’ which covers the whole of Tinside pool area, protecting it from the elements and making it available for use 24/7, 365 days a year, rather than 60.”
The document outlines Phase Seven as being to: “Develop surrounding areas either side of Tinside pool for business and public use, including potential water slides into the sea, proper diving platforms, which are safe, water taxi drop off points and potential small pier.”
