The Leadmill Sheffield: What other projects new owners Electric Group are working on ahead of takeover

It has been five months it emerged the iconic city centre venue will be effectively taken over starting in April 2023.

The club’s landlord, The Electric Group, served the current management team notice in April this year, stating they plan to invest £1m and preserve the building as a music venue.

The renovations would reportedly include upgrading the speaker systems in all three main rooms and redecorating.

But to examine The Electric Group’s track record for restorations, it’s worth looking at what other projects the company has pulled off in the past.

Electric Group operates several other music venues across the UK. It grew out of the success of its refurbishment of the Brixton Fridge as Electric Brixton, and is set to relaunch the O2 Academy in Newcastle as independent venue ‘NX’.

The group is a joint venture between CEO Dominic Madden and Jake Lewis of the Lewis family, who other River Island.

This week, CEO Dominic Madden tweeted an photo showing a crane arriving outside the Newcastle venue to begin construction of a rooftop garden on the four-storey building.

Other features of the £2.5m refurbishment include mezzanine platforms and staircases and four new bars to build what Mr Madden calls “a more intimate gig experience”.

The development has not been without controversy.

Chronicle Live reported there was strong opposition by the city council to the venue’s proposed 4.30am closing time six-days-a-week.

Electric Group offered to jettison this part of the application and revised the hours down to 2.30am Sunday to Thursday and 4.30am on Fridays and Saturdays.

In Bristol, the company reopened a popular student bar, SWX, in 2019. It is set to reopen this September following refurbishments after it was targeted in an arson attack in July 2021, right before it was due to hold a welcome-back party after the pandemic.

The live venue will return with new bar areas, toilets and a sprung dance floor. The cost of the renovations has not been disclosed.

Meanwhile, the outgoing team at The Leadmill continue to appeal for support to ‘save’ the club in its current form.

Electric Group’s head of music, Mike Weller, said in a statement in April it was “absurd and disingenuous” to say the venue was closing, apart from shutting its doors for “a quick tidy up”.