Contractor steps away from John Dalton House build

Bardsley is no longer involved with the 261-bedroom hotel for client Qbic after both parties failed to agree a “mutually acceptable way forward”.

The scheme, which first secured planning approval in 2016, is to be the operator’s second hotel in the UK. It also has a hotel in Amsterdam.

Bardsley began working on the project last October under a pre-contract services agreement and completed enabling works, but has now stepped away from the scheme with a new contractor to be appointed. Place understands this has been due to issues around the programme, rather than the cost of the job.

The 5plus-designed project will see the existing eight-storey office fully re-clad to deliver 109,000 sq ft of hotel and associated space. The Bill’s restaurant on the ground floor will receive an updated frontage, while the former Byron Burger unit on the corner of Deansgate will be absorbed into the hotel’s front-of-house offering.

Mulbury Square will also be enhanced with an additional entrance to the hotel facing this area.

The original application, approved in July 2016, was for a 215-bed hotel with Leonardo Hotels lined up as operator.

Ged Rooney, pre-construction director at Bardsley Construction, said: “Having successfully completed enabling works for Qbic under a separate contract, we were unfortunately unable to agree a mutually acceptable way forward with them, so amicably concluded our relationship with Qbic under our pre-contract services agreement.”

The professional team on the project includes Buro Four as project manager; Deloitte as planner; Arcadis as cost consultant; Layer as landscape architect; Cundall as M&E engineer; Hann Tucker Associates as acoustic engineer; Leslie Clark as principal designer; Shepherd Gilmour as consulting engineer; TPS as transport consultant; and Exova as fire engineer.