Our Story
Dereliction
After closure, the Observer Building passed through 13 owners and was granted many planning permissions while in a worsening state of dereliction. Most of its owners made money on the building without doing a single repair, and the cycle looked like it was set to continue.
In 2013-14 local community interest groups Hastings Trust and White Rock Trust worked together to try to acquire the building but missed out to a private buyer. This turned out to be Richard Upton who asked Jeff Kirby to develop it for him.
Kirby worked with local entrepreneurs Dawn Dublin and Erika Holland to get the building open on a meanwhile basis throughout 2016. This proved very popular but financially unsustainable. With the University of Brighton announcing they were leaving Hastings, the plans for student accommodation were unviable and a new planning application was submitted for 50 flats ‘for millennials from London’. As unbuildable as all the previous ones, this gained consent and the building went back on the market in August 2018.
Dereliction
After closure, the Observer Building passed through 13 owners and was granted many planning permissions while in a worsening state of dereliction. Most of its owners made money on the building without doing a single repair, and the cycle looked like it was set to continue.
In 2013-14 local community interest groups Hastings Trust and White Rock Trust worked together to try to acquire the building but missed out to a private buyer. This turned out to be Richard Upton who asked Jeff Kirby to develop it for him.
Kirby worked with local entrepreneurs Dawn Dublin and Erika Holland to get the building open on a meanwhile basis throughout 2016. This proved very popular but financially unsustainable. With the University of Brighton announcing they were leaving Hastings, the plans for student accommodation were unviable and a new planning application was submitted for 50 flats ‘for millennials from London’. As unbuildable as all the previous ones, this gained consent and the building went back on the market in August 2018.