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
HM Prison Leicester one of the city's most celebrated landmarks. Known throughout the nineteenth century as the 'County Gaol', today the prison has become synonymous with the thoroughfare on which it stands, and is commonly referred to as 'Welford Road Prison', or simply, 'Welford Road'. The prison was designed by Leicester county surveyor William Parsons to resemble a castle and cost £20,000. The oldest part dates from 1825, and it was opened in 1828. The gatehouse including the adjoining building to north and south and the perimeter wall are grade II listed. The journalist William Cobbett, who wrote about his journeys around England