The vision for the Shine Centre was conceived in 2005 when the founding partners of the Camberwell Project, a social enterprise company behind several successful projects in Leeds, visited the derelict Harehills Middle School and decided that the school would be an ideal base for a community enterprise centre. The Grade II-listed Victorian building first opened in 1897 and finally closed in the 1980s. The school had been empty for ten years and had become a physical symbol of the wider economic and social deprivation affecting the area. There were moves to demolish the building in 2000. From 2005 to 2007, the Camberwell Project successfully gathered support and raised £4.5 million from public and private sources including Alliance & Leicester bank, the Government's Local Enterprise Growth Initiative to support entrepreneurial activity in deprived areas, and the European Regional Development Fund. At the end of 2007, the 999 year lease was sold by Leeds City Council to the Harehills Community Interest Company (CIC) for £154,000. Construction work was completed in the summer of 2008.

The project had its challenges. At the halfway stage, the scheme was £1 million over budget and facing serious dry rot problems. Costs were cut by £800,000 by altering less-than-obvious details, such as replacing glass partitions with white walls and using air circulation instead of air conditioning. Camberwell and the contractors also cut their fees by £200,000.

Today the Shine Centre is a successful mixed-use development incorporating high-quality serviced office accommodation alongside flexible, pay-as-you-go space for fledgling businesses coupled with conferencing and much more including a restaurant, gym, child care facilities and an abundance of communal areas. Opening in August 2008, the centre has already resulted in:

• 20 business starts;
• 50 businesses accommodated;
• 2 people from disadvantaged groups employed; and
• 36,000 sq ft of business space created.

The innovative, tiered membership scheme also sets the Shine Centre apart. The first tier is the Catalyst, an initiative offered across selected sites in Leeds. Members pay a very small monthly subscription fee to be part of a network of entrepreneurs who have access to advice, networking events, ad hoc introductions, free meeting space and the use of hot desk. The second tier is shared office space, accommodating businesses of one to three people at affordable monthly rents. The third tier is for growing businesses. Alongside these tiers are the impressive conference and meeting room facilities, which can also be hired out to external businesses. This is a key component of the centre, since only capital funding has been received, and the centre has to operate sustainably once up and running. As the building is owned and managed by Harehills Community Interest Company its value is retained by the community and profits ploughed back into further investment.

• The regeneration of a heritage asset can be a catalyst for the wider investment of an area by realising the potential of an area's built environment and improving the area's community facilities.
• By being imaginative, build budgets can be significantly reduced without compromising on the quality of the end product or affecting the integrity of the heritage asset.
• Be imaginative when identifying funding sources in order to obtain the maximum amount of funding possible for the project.

Source: Regeneration and Renewal (BBC) and Sharing the Success- Leeds Local Enterprise Growth Initiative.