Techniquest Glyndŵr hail ‘magnificent support’ as empty building ‘brought back to life’

Techniquest Glyndŵr opened the doors for the first time at its new town centre base in Henblas Square and Chester Street in the premises previously occupied by the former TJ Hughes department store on Bank Holiday Monday, as part of the ‘Everybodys Monday’ celebrations.

After 7 years of the building lying empty it was brought to life last week by a mixture of science demonstrations, continuous shows in the science centre’s portable planetarium, performances by local street musicians and dance group Dancing Shoes together with a number of local businesses who had been invited to set up stalls for the day in the building.

With colourful and lively window designs commissioned to decorate the various large windows facing the town centre streets they added extra interest to what had become a neglected part of the town centre. The designs replaced the previous window advertising from TJ Hughes that was over 7 years old.

Scot Owen, Education Manager at Techniquest Glyndŵr said: “Ever since we had finally concluded negotiations for a 12 month lease on the building in February we had been on a race against time to meet the deadline of the community celebration on April 2nd and have our building ready for the public to come and visit

“We had to thoroughly clean the ground floor of the building since it had lain empty for a number of years and in order to brighten the street aspect we had a number of specially designed themes made for the prominent window areas facing Henblas Square and Chester Street.

Scot told us there was not the ‘capacity or funding’ to keep the premises open on a continuous basis however key opening dates will be advised over the coming year, roughly every month.

Scot added: “We have had magnificent support so far for our plans and we are hoping our continued presence in the town centre will help to re-vitalise not only the town centre and the businesses situated there, but also become another reason for people to start visiting the town centre again.

“Through our presence in the town centre we are hoping we will be able to engage with a much wider audience than at our existing centre on the Glyndŵr University campus in Plas Coch. And we want to increase awareness of our intention to acquire sufficient funding to purchase and convert the building into an enlarged and more prominent science centre and to move our operations to the heart of the town.

Techniquest Glyndŵr will hear the outcome of a major bid for funding in July this year, which will allow them to press on with their big plans if approved.

To support its work Techniquest Glyndŵr is particularly keen to engage with local companies who have aspects of their business related to science, technology or engineering, “We are keen to help make the science of the classroom come alive by linking real life situations which demonstrate various scientific principles.”

“Links can be through sponsorship of outreach visits to schools in particular areas, the offer of on-site visits to industrial operations or collaboration in the development of additional interactive exhibits to augment the 65 or more examples currently at the centre.”