AVEC building, 3-5 Sidney Street, ("Access Space")

[morrisminor]

Hi all,

Can anyone help find out any history about this mundane looking office building in the city centre, opposite Yorkshire Artspace and the Rutland. It seems surprisingly hard to find out any information and the council have applied to demolish it - perhaps to build some more sorely needed student flats.

Here is what I have found so far:

• i think the address is 3 - 5 Sidney Street judging by the addresses of businesses located there now (it is still well occupied i think)

• there is a fried fish dealer - Frank Flood - listed at 5 Sidney Street in 1905

• looking at historic Ordnance Survey maps up to 1955 a Pearl handle works is shown (this may have been George Saville's works before/after they moved from Pearl Works where a mini Tesco is now?)

• 

• by 1963 the Pearl Handle Works shown is replaced by the building that is clearly the AVEC building ( where the red arrow is - its cut off in this map but the 1967 shows it in full)

• 

• next door (what is now Yorkshire Artspace) had long been a mechanics/garage/car showroom. The forecourt is shown on the old OS maps before and after the AVEC building goes up. This was either Autoways 1931 (still going) or Hatfields - Picture Sheffield has photos showing what seems clearly the HAtfields showroom facing the space that is now AVEC building

• I can't find a reference to what AVEC meant at all. there was a sports kit manufacturer called Avec which made Sheffield United's kit for some seasons - and is still going - but looking around they were set up in 1993 and seem like they are a north east based company

• finally....and hopefully most usefully, @unrecordings posted a photo on another thread that was from their office window in 1989 – I think this must have been from the AVEC building? i wondered if you could remember anything about the building that might have indicated when it was put up and who occupied it?

Thanks to anyone who can help!

[Edmund]

A.V.E.C. (AUDIO VISUAL ELECTRONIC CONTRACTORS) LIMITED was a Private Limited Company, registration number 01598462, established in United Kingdom on the 19. November 1981. The company was in business for 24 years and 7 months.  The business of the company by SIC and NACE code was "6312 - Storage and warehousing".  It was "DISSOLVED VIA VOLUNTARY STRIKE-OFF" from the 18th July 2006.

[morrisminor]

Thanks Edmund that's a great lead. Seems like they occupied the building some time after it went up. It turns out I'm too late - the time for commenting is over and there's little grounds for the application to be refused

[tozzin]

The Arrow points to the rear of George Butlers Cutlass Works, when I worked there from 1978 there wasn’t any Pearl works it was all occupied by Butlers. Ernest Hadfield did occupy the car showroom selling Jaguar and Daimler Cars, but no Pearl works, between Hadfields and Butlers was a passage wide enough to park cars, it ran from Sidney Street down to the Porter and had a large stone block surface.

[Brian Lewis]

Hi. My partner and I took on one of the studios in the AVEC building as a very short let in summer 2020 (end of July through to end of August). The short let was arranged by CADS - most of the tenants had already left by the time that we moved in, as the schedule of demolition (which had been on the cards for some years, apparently) had been confirmed, and it seemed that everyone had to be out by the beginning of September 2020.

Until March 2020 (or thereabouts), one of the 'bigger' tenants was 'The Great Escape', a company with approx 30 people offering an immersive 'escape room' experience over several rooms of the first floor (for obvious reasons, the first lockdown affected them adversely - though I think the company still exists in some form). In this final phase, the other tenants included artists, yoga teachers and fitness instructors, and a DJ tutor, Ian Stanley, who was, I believe, the very last tenant to move out (in mid-September).

Further back, the building was occupied by Yorkshire Artspace (in the early 2000s? before they moved to the Persistence Works building), and other creative tenants, inc. RGAP (the Research Group for Artists' Publications). 

My partner and I had a large, light-filled corner studio (windows along two walls) that looked out at the Rutland pub. We were both exhausted from months of working from home, and needed space and a change of scenery (she was working on a PhD; I'm a publisher). The rent was very cheap (£160 for 5 weeks, inc. internet, electricity, etc) due to the imminent closure of the building. Though it was pretty dilapidated by this point, there was still a good spirit to the place, and it was a happy, productive time.

I'm currently drafting a short piece based on our brief time at AVEC (for possible inclusion in a book). It struck me - at a fairly early stage in our 'residency' - that the place had seen decades of culturally significant activity, but because it wasn't considered an architecturally significant building (unlike, say, Bank Street Arts), it seemed that no-one had chronicled its history (or sought to arrest its decline). Which comes back to your original question, I suppose!

[Organgrinder]

On 24/02/2021 at 06:56, tozzin said:

The Arrow points to the rear of George Butlers Cutlass Works, when I worked there from 1978 there wasn’t any Pearl works it was all occupied by Butlers. Ernest Hadfield did occupy the car showroom selling Jaguar and Daimler Cars, but no Pearl works, between Hadfields and Butlers was a passage wide enough to park cars, it ran from Sidney Street down to the Porter and had a large stone block surface.

I worked at Leppingtons (Butlers) in 1957 & 1958 and can confirm this,

I used to park my motorbike on this lane / passageway and cannot remember a Pearl works in that spot

[tozzin]

The only Pearl Works I can remember was on Eyre Lane, I think they re located to Dronfield.

 

[morrisminor]

this is from the 1954-55 OS map. I'm not quite sure the the space labelled "Pearl Handle Works" is a building or some sort of yard)

[Brian Lewis]

The AVEC building has now been demolished (the demolition seems to have taken place in the last week or so).