Developers move to lock in £200m Pall Mall consent
Kier Property and CTP have applied to preserve planning permission for the long-awaited 400,000 sq ft Liverpool office development before it expires in November.
The developers’ move to lock in consent for the £200m Pall Mall scheme comes almost three years after plans for the project were approved.
Liverpool City Council unanimously backed a hybrid application for a trio of office buildings and a hotel on the three-acre city centre site in October 2019.
Since then, Willmott Dixon has completed a package of remediation and enabling but no above-ground construction has taken place. In 2020, a proposed pre-let to BT for the 100,000 sq ft first phase office fell through.
The telecommunications giant had chosen Pall Mall as the location for its new city centre hub but shelved plans to relocate from Old Hall Street amid uncertainty triggered by the pandemic.
CTP and Kier had also struck a deal with hotel operator Leonardo to bring forward a 281-bedroom hotel on the site as part of the initial phase.
Liverpool City Council appointed Kier and CTP as development partners for the Pall Mall site in 2018.
The project team includes Allies & Morrison as architect, Re-form Landscape Architecture, WSP as planning consultant, and Curtins as structural and civil engineer.
CTP founder David Topham died last year aged 65. Following his death, Richard Topham and James Nicholson, managing director of Harlex Property, took over the running of the business.
A cause for optimism here that this scheme will proceed, BT have made some recent remarks, and hopefully Sir Howard Bernstein can move things along, optimism too for the cruise terminal and Littlewood`s Film Studios.
By Anonymous
Couldn’t they preserve the consent by, you know, starting on site?
By Bob Allatt
I feel that giving prime commercial land to a developer who offered no proactive plan to develop indicates just how toxic the city council had become to large scale developers.
So desperate was someone at the council to prove that they could deliver, that this deal was forced ahead. Including the still unsolved mystery splitting of the site between commercial and residential…
Liverpool’s rabid pro-development cheerleaders decried any opposition. To them I ask “where is the development?” These people wouldn’t know egg on their face if it was poached.
I expect someone will be along soon to talk about wildlife, as if that was what people who raised concerns were actually worried about. They should know that only the other day on the patch of grass left behind Exchange Station, I spotted one solitary rabbit…
By Jeff
Shhh don’t let the nimbys find out.
By Michael McDonut
Lock in consent to leave a big muddy hole in the centre of Liverpool? The reason planning permission expires after 3 years is precisely to stop things like this happening.
By Du Be Ous
Unlikely that BT will now change their regional consolidation strategy. The new office in Manchester opens in about 18 months or so. You never know though the share price might rocket. I’ve been 10 years for that though.
By Anonymous
This is brilliant news.
Glad they got rid of the litter strewn grassy knoll.
By BimboLimboSpam
It willl be great to see this development evolve – Liverpool desperately needs new high quality offices, to help existing businesses expand. As a key regional UK city, it also needs to provide modern new office space, to attract inward investors.
By Anonymous
Wasn’t this the one which had shocking environmental impacts?
By Anonymous
Far too many stalled schemes in the city…symptomatic of weak political leadership….someone has to get a grip and start delivering projects from the consent stage
By Tercol