BDP Takes £148m Royal Armouries Leeds Expansion Into Detailed Design

A £148m expansion of the Royal Armouries in Leeds is heading toward a main contractor race after BDP won the job of steering the scheme through detailed design.

The waterfront programme splits roughly into two parts: around £114m for redeveloping the Tiltyard and a further £34m for an adjacent hotel. For scale, the whole build costs about as much as 1,000 average UK homes — and it's only one piece of a larger £188m investment plan for the Royal Armouries' Leeds estate.

What will actually get built?

At the heart of the job sits a new 38,000 sq ft exhibition and events hall. The wider redevelopment goes well beyond that single building, creating more than 86,000 sq ft of conference and events space in total.

The rebuilt Tiltyard will become a multi-level cultural, conference and events venue. It will hold around 1,800 delegates, alongside new meeting rooms, hospitality space and immersive visitor experiences.

The project also delivers new riverside public realm, landscaping and improved connections around Leeds Dock. A planning application is expected in 2027.

Why the build won't be simple

The main museum, conference facilities and New Dock Hall will all stay open during construction. That constraint adds to the delivery challenge for whichever contractor eventually wins the job — phased working around a live visitor attraction is a different proposition from building on a cleared site.

The design places the planned new riverside building in front of the existing Royal Armouries museum, which sits immediately behind it at Leeds Dock.

What happens next

The immediate milestone is the 2027 planning application. Until then, BDP's detailed design work will define the package that main contractors bid on, covering both the Tiltyard venue and the hotel component.

With £148m of construction work in play and a live-museum constraint built into the brief, the eventual contractor race is likely to favour firms with proven experience of phased cultural and events builds.