Apartments at the corner of King Street and St Helen's St are nearing completion and developer Bolsterstone feels confident enough of finding occupiers for its office schemes to start work on site.
So despite a crisis in the financial markets and funding for new projects all but drying up, the momentum created following the launch of Cityscape's Masterplan has helped ensure that regeneration in Derby has not ground to a standstill.
That said, there have been significant setbacks for the city's regeneration.
The Becketwell site has failed to attract any serious interest from developers and the former police station and magistrates court in Full Street are yet to be redeveloped having failed to find tenants.
Derby City Council's decision to redevelop the Council House rather than take space in a new scheme in the city also came as a blow.
Some in the city saw this as ironic given the council's renewed focus on regeneration.
Recognising the negative impact of such a decision, city council chief executive Adam Wilkinson went so far as to apologise for the decision when addressing city property professionals this month.
But despite this early setback, Mr Wilkinson has made the further regeneration of the city a priority. Just last week councillors gave the green light to a £10m fund to help spark regeneration in Derby.
One of the potential uses for the fund would be to pay for decontamination of land as an incentive for developers to purchase sites.
Developer David Osborne, who is behind the Riverlights scheme in Derby, said: "It's positive and welcome news for the city but clearly the details of the scheme and how it is going to be applied will be the determining factors in how successful it is."
As part of the £95m Riverlights project, work to fit out two new hotels will be completed by the end of the year, adding another 234 bedrooms to the city centre.
The Hampton by Hilton and Holiday Inn hotels are each likely to employ around 60 people.
Last week it emerged that the city council has extended the deadline for repair work to be completed on Grade II-listed St Helen's House.
Operators are being sought for a plan to transform the building into a hotel although no-one is likely to commit to funding the project before the completion of the Connecting Derby scheme that is altering the road layout in front of the building.
Connecting Derby is another project that will radically affect the city during 2010.
By summer there will be a road linking King Street with Lodge Lane.
This autumn, there will be new roads linking Osmaston Road to Burton Road and Burton Road to Stafford Street.
A new road from Abbey Street will lead to a roundabout at the junction of Burton Road and the top of Green Lane.
This year looks like the year that Derby gets its transport links organised.
The bus station at the aforementioned Riverlights scheme has been handed over to Derby City Council and the first buses will deposit their first passengers next month.
As work concludes on Connecting Derby, the railway station will start to undergo its own redevelopment.
Planning permission has been granted for a seven-figure redevelopment of the entrance to the railway station.
The £1.8m scheme is being funded by the East Midlands Development Agency and Derby City Council, contributing £1.75m and £500,000 respectively.
The redesigned frontage will have a bus interchange, a 32-space taxi rank, additional cycle parking and an area for dropping passengers off.
Work is due to be finished by early 2011.
Following completion of this project, work will be carried out to create more than 5,000 sq ft of office space a new multi-storey car park and the redevelopment of commercial property on other car park sites.
As well as evidence of public sector investment in infrastructure, last month saw encouraging commercial activity as Bolsterstone started groundworks on its £12m Central Square scheme. Once completed, it will offer some 50,000 sq ft of office space.
Developer Lowbridge is keen to start work on its £20m Friar Gate Square office scheme fronting Agard Street and Ford Street.
Friar Gate Square, despite being the most recent of Derby's large-scale office schemes to be granted planning permission, is going head to head with Bolsterstone's Central Square to be the first to welcome tenants.
Nick Hosking, director at Innes England and agent for Friar Gate Square, said: "Friar Gate has historically been at the heart of the city centre business district and remains an attractive and accessible location for businesses.
"It will be of interest to both local occupiers as well as organisations choosing to relocate to Derby and in particular this historic quarter of the city centre," he said.
Friar Gate Square is made up of two buildings so the first could be occupied before the second is built, thereby limiting the developer's exposure to empty property rates.
Between Central Square, Number One Cathedral Green, Cedar House Investment's City Gate House, Friar Gate Square and Norseman Derby's 400,000 sq ft OneDerby scheme, the city now has around 850,000 sq ft of modern office space with planning permission, a situation unprecedented in Derby's history.
Norseman's development would also be made up of a 100-bed hotel and space for restaurant and cafe operators.
It is aimed squarely at the potential civil service location and has the capacity to create as many as 2,500 jobs and that represents many salaries being spent in the city.
Though multi-million pound developments are an important part of what the city has to offer, important high-profile work is being undertaken to improve historic areas of the city at a fraction of the cost.
Restoration work has already started to replace tired looking shopfronts dating from the 1960s and 1970s with traditional Victorian and Edwardian facades.
Solid timber frames, marble plinths, wooden mouldings and brass door handles and letter boxes will make shops more enticing to potential customers and empty units more attractive to potential tenants.
Up to 80% of the restoration costs are borne by English Heritage, Derby City Council, and a central Government fund to improve communities.
The Strand has already had restoration work done and more is in the pipeline, encouraged and overseen by property agent Trevor Raybould of Raybould and Sons.
Planning permission has now been submitted to restore the properties in The Wardwick between Curzon Street and Becket Street and property owners in Green Lane have expressed an interest in having frontages restored to their former glory.
Projects of this kind, costing landlords only a few thousand pounds, might make little impact on Cityscape's £2bn investment target for Derby but show that there is more to regeneration than multi-million pound projects.
Article courtesy of Derby Telegraph