The Island’s creative sector will benefit from an exciting new shared workspace initiative in the newly established Engine House in Castletown.

Located in the former Canada Life building on Alexandra Road, The Engine House is aimed primarily at those working in the media, arts and technology fields, generating new businesses and relationships through the companies who base themselves there.

The Engine House is located within the Castletown regeneration zone so that tenants can apply for grant support and up to their first years’ rent free of charge.

Director Jane Hall told Business News: ‘I think we have the ambience right, and it is a place where people will want to come to work. It feels comfortable, it has a homely feel to it, it feels warm and has a welcoming environment. And that is what we are aiming for. We want to build a community for artists and people in the creative communities.

‘I think it is really important that people can feed off each other.

‘They spark ideas off each other and that will lead to lots of new businesses being generated out of here, just by bringing together all the right people

‘We have got a large cinema distribution company coming, who will be moving in in a fortnight.

‘We have an animation studio already in place which will hopefully grow to be something substantial, and we have lost of interest from different sectors, but mainly from the arts media and tech related industries.

‘We want the right people here and I am hoping that we will be sending people to the right shared work spaces that are right for them.

We will be working with the island’s media, the Dfe and a lot of the great initiatives that are already here in the island and hopefully we will be building something really special and helping to build that tier of the economy.’

Eric Evenson told Businness News: ‘The Engine house is a dedicated incubator, which will be a market maker place for media digital technology that are either on the island or coming to the island, which will hopefully make it a nice, smooth process for companies to come here and start small with boots on the ground, and progress through to being a viable and important company for the island.

‘We offer entrepreneurs a business in house, and we do try to provide funding where we think that is needed.’

Department for Enterprise minister Laurence Skelly said: ‘It is a great addition to what we are creating on the island, which is an island of enterprise and opportunity.

‘I think it is very important to have the right infrastructure, and this is a critical piece of infrastructure if we are to promote innovations.’