Leicester City Centre designated Leicester's new cultural quarter, and is already the site of the Leicester Creative Business Depot(built on the old Leicester City Bus depot and keeping the initials) and the Athena. The LCB Depot opened in July 2004, and by the time of its first birthday had let 37 of 55 units, with talk starting of finding an additional site. Opposite the Athena, a new flagship £60 million Curve Theatre, Leicester, designed by Rafael Vinoly Architects, started construction in 2005, on a site that has been long-disused. It is planned to be ready for handover 2007 to the Haymarket company, who
Clarendon Tower was the architect and he designed the three-storey building in Renaissance Revival style. Maddison was a notable architect in Christchurch at the time and designed 14 hotels over a period of 28 years (including Warner's and Carlton Hotels), the Old Government Building and the buildings for the New Zealand International Exhibition in 1906 in Hagley Park. The construction work was carried out by J. Otley. Some notable people stayed in the hotel, including the Duke of Edinburgh (1869), Lee Kuan Yew (the 1st Prime Minister of Singapore), King George VI (1948), Queen Elizabeth II (1954) and the Queen Mother (1958).