ONE of the businessmen behind Ena Works has shared the progress of his latest venture, with the first company starting trading yesterday.
Stephen Palfrey grew up on Vincent Street and as well as his design business PalfreyGreer, is a property developer in the town.
Mr Palfrey, who is a partner in Ruskin and has transformed the likes of the former Plaza Nightclub into Teardrops HQ, took over the former Ena Shaws building on Duke Street following the firm’s closure in 2020.
The former Ena Shaw has now been transformed into Ena Works, a site with a café and retail space, office suites and flexible working stations all in a bid to offer a home to businesses in the town.
Most recently he found a home for five businesses out of almost 30 ousted from Alexandra Business Park following the closure of the site.
And now Ena Works is to start with the first business trading at the site this Friday, and plans for a full launch in a month’s time.
He said: “It’s majorly important to me to invest in St Helens. I’m all for redevelopment in the town and all my businesses are here and I get St Helens contractors in to work on them, as I believe that helps create a circle of economy in our community.
“Ena Works is very exciting. I liked the idea of creating modern and up to date spaces used for different types of business.
“Teardrops are diversifying and opening a café and retail space in the downstairs with offices too which should be launched by the end of May and we have many other businesses on board too, including Driver Net which is the first business to start trading there from Friday.
“I love repurposing buildings, it’s the one thing I sometimes get upset about with plans for the future, this idea we have to knock things down and build new, sometimes it’s better, cheaper and easier for the town to update and repurpose what we already have here.
READ: Five companies based at Alexandra Business Park find new home
“People in St Helens want to update the place with quality. There are places with this style of working in Manchester and with more people working from home, they might need a base for meetings or to work from if that set up doesn’t suit them.
“I look forward to having it open.”
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