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Business News Live Business
Freehold on Newcastle Academy up for sale
By Chris Cooke | Published on Friday 3 July 2015
The O2 Academy in Newcastle is up for sale. Do you want it? £625,000 is the guide price apparently.
I might buy it. Rename it the Shit Phone Network Academy. True, I should really be getting over by beef with O2 by now, I’ve not been a customer of theirs for years. But fuck it. Shit Phone Network Academy it is.
No not really. It’s not the venue business that’s up for sale, but rather the property itself, which is currently owned by the “cash-strapped” (according to local paper The Journal) Newcastle City Council. The local authority is selling the freehold on the site as part of a number of property sales to bring in some quick speedy loot to, and I quote the council, “boost the city’s economy and help it emerge strongly from recession”. Good times.
But none of this should affect the popular music venue run by the Live Nation allied Academy Music Group, a spokesman for which told The Journal: “As is extremely common with many buildings, Newcastle City Council is selling off a number of its property assets and freeholds. Please be assured that this does not in any way affect Academy Music Group and the trading of O2 Academy Newcastle; it is very much business as usual”.
