Capital&Centric’s Crusader woes ‘worth it’
After numerous delays, the 126-home mill conversion in Manchester’s emerging Piccadilly East district is complete. The developer that delivered it says the sleepless nights during construction were a small price to pay for the end result.
“It has taken a lot longer to build than we wanted,” said Adam Higgins, co-founder of Capital&Centric. “It has probably been one of the hardest projects that we’ve done.”
The developer won planning consent for the Shedkm-designed project in 2016. The conversion of the former mill on Chapeltown Street began in earnest in early 2018.
In 2019, contractors found that much of the timber within the old building was not usable, setting the project back.
The discovery of this nasty surprise was aired to the nation on the BBC documentary Manctopia, along with footage of several frosty meetings with would-be residents.
The delays to the Crusader project meant that many people who had reserved apartments were left waiting years to get their keys. The first flats, available exclusively to owner-occupiers, were put up for sale in 2017.
Higgins said he was “disappointed” about that but insists the delays were unavoidable.
“There’s nothing we can do, we’ve still got to go through the building [process],” he said.
“We’ve got to make it safe and it’s got to be fire compliant. We can’t take any shortcuts, we have to finish it properly.”
One thing Higgins would do differently with the benefit of hindsight is hold off on launching the flats for sale.
“I think we should have held our nerve and marketed it later than we did. Because it meant that some of the people who reserved early were waiting around for a long time before they could move in.”
Then the pandemic hit, causing further delays as a workforce of 90 was cut down to 30 in line with government guidelines.
This impacted the project and also the contractor. Artez went bust in October 2021 leaving the already-delayed project further behind schedule.
Now , more than five years after the first properties were sold, Crusader is now complete.
The scheme has not put Higgins off mill conversions. Credit: via Font Comms
Only a handful of flats, which are set around a landscaped central courtyard Higgins describes as “a little secret oasis”, are still up for grabs.
“I think it was worth it in the end,” Higgins said. “I think it’s probably the best kind of non-build-to-rent scheme in Manchester, to be honest.”
You might have thought that the stress of delivering a complex mill conversion through an uncertain time and having to placate angry residents may have put the developer off pursuing this kind of scheme in future. You would be wrong.
While Higgins concedes schemes like Crusader are “more complicated and more costly to do”, he believes the pay-off is worth the pain.
“I still think it’s worth it because we’re saving important parts of Manchester,” Higgins said. “Buildings like this, unless they get converted into a new use, eventually fall down a collapse.
“When you finish it, you create something that almost can never be replicated in a new build.”
Crusader may be finished but Capital&Centric now has its hands full with a similar project.
Work to transform two historic buildings at Weir Mill in Stockport into homes is in the early stages.
The local council, which is funding the Weir Mill project, will be praying that the problems that plagued Crusader do not rear their heads in Stockport.
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- Credit: via Font Comms
- Credit: via Font Comms
- Credit: via Font Comms
- Credit: via Font Comms
- Credit: via Font Comms
- Credit: via Font Comms
- Credit: via Font Comms
