Cairn reworks Piccadilly hotel plans on feasibility 

Revised proposals for a larger extension to the Manchester Gardens Hotel have been lodged with the city council more than three years after a smaller iteration of the project was approved. 

Cairn Hotel Group has submitted an updated application to build a nine-storey hotel block on a vacant site on the corner of Back Piccadilly and Little Lever Street. 

The block would comprise 94 bedrooms and connect to the Gardens Hotel – which fronts Piccadilly – via a fifth-floor glazed link bridge. Plans to refurbish the existing hotel were approved in 2018.

If the updated plans for the extension are approved, the development would take the total number of bedrooms across the new-build and existing elements to 176. 

It had previously been reported that the hotel would be operated under the Hotel Indigo brand on a franchise agreement. However, it is unclear whether this plan still stands.

Place North West contacted InterContinental Hotel Group, the owner of the Indigo brand, which declined to comment on whether it was still involved in the project.

Cairn was also contacted for comment.

The redevelopment and extension of the Manchester Gardens Hotel has been in the pipeline for several years.

In October 2018, Manchester City Council granted Cairn permission to build a seven-storey extension featuring 60 bedrooms but the revised plans supersede that proposal. 

Post-planning discussions about the construction of the earlier scheme found site constraints would impact the scheme’s budget and make the project unviable, according to a design and access statement prepared by Street Design Partnership.