Lenrose presses ahead with CIS tower rebirth
Plans to refurbish Manchester’s first skyscraper into a “best-in-class office, retail, and leisure offer”, have been lodged with the city council.
The submission of plans for the redevelopment of the grade two-listed 28-storey CIS Tower in Manchester’s NOMA district marks a significant step forward for the long-awaited project.
In April, Place North West revealed the scheme was being progressed by development manager Lenrose Ventures, which replaced Castlebrooke Investments on the job.
Now Lenrose has put forward its vision, designed by SimpsonHaugh Architects, to the city’s planners. The scheme will feature 414,000 sq ft of lettable space in total across offices, office amenity space, restaurants, retail, and leisure.
The application has not yet been validated.
James Moores, partner at Lenrose Ventures said: “The proposed development will restore and significantly upgrade this iconic building in the centre of Manchester.
“We look forward to continuing to work with Manchester City Council as we progress the application.’
CBRE and Colliers have been appointed as the leasing agents for the development with marketing of the space due to commence later this year.
CIS Tower was acquired by Jersey-based SPV Devonshire (CIS Tower) Limited for £66m in 2017.
Before the pandemic, Castlebrooke, acting for the SPV, lodged plans to refurbish the building and secured a £60m loan from Trafford Council for the project.
That scheme, designed by SimpsonHaugh Architects, was reimagined post-Covid and branded as Society. However, the project did not progress, opening the door for Lenrose’s involvement.
Much welcomed news!
By Tom
Crying out for some SH checkerboard cladding, this one.. :\
By Anonymous
Working from home is real. Office space is dead. Surely the best option for this building would be apartments or a hotel
By Andrew Battersby
And what happened to the £60m loan from Trafford MBC? Has it been repaid?
By Anonymous
Excellent news. It will be good to see the CIS tower brought back to life. But please don’t take too long, I’d hate to see a rerun of the Hotspur press incident here.
By Anonymous
I am obviously wrong on this but I thought it had been totally refurbished not so long ago? I remember the exteriour being refreshed.
By Cristoforo
Looking forward to this evolving – CIS Tower is such a cool looking building and it’s time is now! Manchester needs this building back up and running.
By Richard
@ Andrew Battersby – if your job can be done 100% remotely it can be done by AI – good luck
By The truth
Working from home lives in some peoples heads bless em! There’s a reason Manchester builds so many offices..it’s called reality.
By Anonymous
If you advocate working from home don’t complain when artifical intelligence takes your job!!
By Manc
Andrew Battersby too many apartments are already left empty in Manchester and the surrounding areas. Get people back working in the office.
By Anonymous
This awesome structure never dates. The positioning of it, is also perfect. This needs to be an hotel. It needs to be a centre of activity in an area which is burgeoning.
By Elephant