The registered social landlord will develop the £30m Buddleia centre in Liverpool to open in time for the 800th anniversary of the city's founding charter in 2007.
Based in an old maritime warehouse, it will offer courses for local people and will house office space for small businesses, BME voluntary organisations, a cinema, a theatre, art galleries and a performance space. It will provide 300 paid jobs, 100 training positions and 60 voluntary jobs.
Tara Muthoora, head of regeneration at Novas, said: "The centre will help BME people by training them and giving them jobs and hopefully then they can go into the city centre and get the jobs that are starting to emerge because of the regeneration of the city."
Novas has set up a subsidiary organisation Sesen Avani – which means "to wish for more earth" in Eritrean – to run the project.
It is to set up four pilot projects in Manchester, Bristol, London and Liverpool.
The locations were chosen because of their history as slave ports.
The London project will open in summer 2004, Bristol and Liverpool will open a few months later and a building will be found for the Manchester project this year.
Novas, which is based in Liverpool but operates UK-wide, is forming partnerships with housing and community organisations in the Caribbean, the United States and West Africa with the idea of doing staff exchanges and possibly launching a pilot community project.
Novas is negotiating for funding from the Heritage Lottery Fund, the European Regional Development Fund, the North-west Development Agency, urban regeneration company Liverpool Vision and the Arts Council.
The plans are part of Novas's expansion into community enterprise schemes. It has launched a chain of shops and cafes called Novas Bloom, the first of which will open in London next year.
Source
Housing Today
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