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Yella' Brick Road Granted Success
With help from Rotherham Borough Councils vitality grants, Yella Brick Road will be open for business in Rotherham town centre as of Monday 7th December.
The independent vintage clothing and accessories boutique will open its doors within the flagship Renaissance residential and retail development in time for Christmas thanks to the rental and fit out grants.
The grants scheme, funded by Rotherham Borough Council and developed by Rotherham Town Centre Management in partnership with Barnsley & Rotherham Chamber of Commerce, is part of a drive to improve the range of shops and reduce the number of empty units.
Born in Rotherham, entrepreneur 28 year old Danielle Roden, said: I am extremely excited about opening my boutique in Rotherham town centre and thrilled to be the first business in this gorgeous retail arcade. I remember this building from my childhood. I have had shops before in Thailand and also on line, but it is nice to come back to my roots and stand out from Rotherham’s existing offer.
Danielle has taken a 35 sq m unit within the Grade II Listed Building and will be selling vintage couture fashion and accessories, as well as some High Street fashion, shoes and handmade jewellery.
Danielle added: I would love to specialise in the one off couture pieces so would like to encourage anybody who is interested to make these kinds of items themselves to sell in my shop. I believe this will be a good opportunity for anyone to grow their love of being creative in the fashion world.
Danielle will be joined in the New Year by a further three businesses: a jewellers, coffee shop and a womens clothing boutique.
Rotherham Open Arts Renaissance, or ROAR, are hoping to use the internal arcade of Imperial Buildings to form an arts gallery exhibiting and selling local pieces rounding off this niche offer for Rotherham shoppers. Chief Executive of ROAR Karen Sherwood said: This is a wonderfully exciting opportunity to showcase a small proportion of the wealth of creative talent Rotherham has in a fabulous building.
With the apartments almost totally occupied on the upper floors and the retail units being taken up at a rapid pace due to the rental incentives offered by Rotherham Council on the ground floor, the economic climate does not seem to be stalling Rotherhams Renaissance at the moment.
And the good news doesnt end there. Just across the road from Imperial Buildings Lisa Middlemiss is getting ready to also open her Bridal Boutique, Purely Bridal, in the former Sheffield Star office building on Corporation Street.
The councils Cabinet Member for Economic Development, Planning and Transportation, Cllr Gerald Smith, said: We welcome these businesses to Rotherham town centre and are very pleased that the offer soon to be provided was just what we had hoped for, high quality, niche and what our shoppers had asked for. We wish these businesses every success in their venture and we are glad that the grants system has done what it set out to do, encourage this type of entrepreneurial spirit to ensure Rotherhams offer can be different.
