Central Quay
- Client
- Rightacres Property Co.
- Services
- Masterplanning
- Sector
- Urban Design, Mixed Use
- Location
- Cardiff, Wales
- Collaborators
- Rio Architects
Wales’s largest regeneration scheme, on the River Taff
A waterfront masterplan retaining Cardiff’s 19th-century Brains Brewery as the centrepiece of a new mixed-use city quarter. Benoy designed the masterplan for Central Quay, a 232,000m² mixed-use regeneration on the site of the former Brains Brewery in central Cardiff. Bordered by the River Taff and adjacent to Cardiff Central railway station, the project is set to be the largest regeneration scheme in Wales. The brief from developer Rightacres Property Co. was to navigate the site’s complex land ownership while creating a coherent new quarter that reconnects the city centre to the river.
232,000m²
Brewery heritage as the anchor
The 19th-century Brewhouse and the Brains-branded chimney that have stood on this part of Cardiff for more than a century are retained as the centrepiece of the new public realm. They become the architectural backdrop to a new waterfront plaza on the River Taff, turning a piece of working industrial heritage into the social heart of a contemporary mixed-use neighbourhood.
A transit-connected city quarter
The masterplan delivers around 1,000 apartments and 139,000m² of office space, alongside a public programme combining co-working, education, retail and food and drink. Pedestrian and cycle connectivity is the structuring principle, with green infrastructure and direct routes linking the site into the wider city. The proximity to Cardiff Central gives the development a transit-oriented framework, with the bulk of the new programme within walking distance of national rail.
