From angry mob to super-prime – Gary Neville’s St Michael’s journey

Over the last 15 years, the former Manchester United captain has found himself asking if developing a mixed-use scheme in the heart of the city’s historic core was actually worth the hassle.

At an event celebrating the official completion of No1 St Michael’s on Wednesday evening, praise flowed in all directions, suggesting the end result had indeed been worth the pain.

The occasion must have felt slightly surreal for Gary Neville, given that there were times when the completion of any element of St Michael’s seemed impossible.

Thousands of objections greeted the initial two-tower design, which Neville admits failed to appropriately consider the site’s historic location, nestled off Jacksons Row in the heart of the city’s historic core.

Chastened by the criticism, Neville and his colleagues at Relentless Developments were forced back to the drawing board in 2017.

Hodder + Partners was drafted in to craft a revised scheme that would appease objectors and smooth the ground with Historic England; a single tower and the retention of the Bootle Street Police Station facade and Sir Ralph Ambercromby pub were well-received.

In the years that followed, a global pandemic, construction cost inflation, and uncertainty around the future of the office cast further doubt on the scheme.

Many thought it would never happen. It is little wonder, then, that Neville is “incredibly proud” of the completed first phase, 185,000 sq ft of office space fully let to the likes of Hill Dickinson, ARM, and Channel 4.

“I don’t give up, although there were moments where I thought, is this worth it?” he admits.

The setbacks and disappointments Neville has endured were a strange experience for one of the most decorated English footballers of all time.

The criticism levelled at Neville in the first instance affected him personally. He feels bad about ignoring people, many of whom would have supported him, a hometown hero, from the terraces during his playing career.

“Manchester is a city of people who will fight back against things that they object to.

“We got a few thousand objections and at the time that was hard for someone who’d been at Manchester United and lived in a football environment whereby we just used to bulldoze through everybody.”

How the scheme will look once complete. Credit: via Truth PR

He added: “What’s quite clear to me is that you can have a great idea but if you don’t bring people along on the journey with you, you will be rejected.

“I recognize that when you’re developing you have responsibility, not just to your own development company and your partners, you have a responsibility to the community, to the city, to the people. And I learned that the hard way.”

The final product was difficult to deliver but arguably sets a new standard for workspace in the city.

Like its developer, No1 St Michael’s is treble-winning – the building set a new headline rent for Manchester three times, taking the record to £45/sq ft.

The scheme is also one of few in the country to be recognised by the BCO as ‘super-prime’ – a new designation of workspace the organisation is rolling out.

Fainter hearted developers might have walked away. It is not as if Neville doesn’t have other interests to pursue.

Some argue less well-known individuals might have failed and that Neville’s status enabled him to carry on when others might not have had the resources.

At the event, Neville pushed back on suggestions that his fame as a footballer somehow helped open the doors required to get the scheme over the line.

“I have been doing this for 21 years,” he said, recalling when he would spend afternoons during his football career poring over plans and visiting construction sites behind manager Sir Alex Ferguson’s back.

Fergie notoriously took a dim view of his players’ extra-curricular activites.

Neville prides himself on being in the detail, being a perfectionist, and attending as many meetings as possible. In other words, development is not a hobby.

He did not really have to say any of that. Opening the event, Anthony Kilbride, who runs Relentless Developments with Neville, lavished praise on his business partner.

“This is his vision. Without his leadership, his guidance and his friendship, St Michael’s simply wouldn’t exist,” he said.

The office block is fully let. Credit: via Truth PR

Cllr Bev Craig was equally effusive about Neville’s efforts, praising his “graft and persistence”.

“I’m sure many other people might just move on to an easier project,” she said, alluding to the project’s tricky location in the city’s historic core.

“It’s much easier in other areas of the city, where life was just a surface car park, to build something up,” she added.

“[St Michael’s] symbolises the energy and the attitudes that we have in Manchester that people don’t say things are too hard, so we’re not going to try it. They say, ‘this looks really hard and it’s really challenging, how can we make it work?”

Despite Neville’s apparent virtues as a developer, he insists he could not have done it without the support of his seven Relentless colleagues.

He also thanked funding partner KKR for taking a chance on a developer with no track record trying to deliver a speculative office development.

“There was no real reason to believe [in] this. We had never built something like this before. So they had to buy into a set of what I call unbelievable projections.”

Timing was also crucial. KKR backed the office development in summer of 2021, well before Liz Truss’s mini-budget and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which spooked the markets.

But it was the city council for whom Neville reserved his most lavish praise, in particular former chief executive Sir Howard Bernstein.

“We used to go and see him the last Friday in every month, four till five. It was 55 minutes on football and five minutes on development,” Neville remembers.

“But in that five minutes we got what I always think is very important from a council or from any partner: it was quick yesses and quick nos. There was no messing around.”

Neville attributes the city council’s trust in him, patience, and “entrepreneurial” attitude as being vital to the completion of the scheme, suggesting it could not have been delivered anywhere else.

“When you go into other cities and you speak to other developers or people who are working there, they don’t have that same approach,” he said.

“At any point, the council could have said, ‘no, we’re going to give it to somebody else because you’re not getting this away’. And they never did and I thank them for that.”

Neville’s relationship with the council and love for the city is the reason he does not plan to develop anywhere else. He intends to announce new projects over the coming months.

“We are absolutely doubling down in the city,” he said. “I’ve got to wake up enthused every single day and inspired about the things that I’m doing.

“So we have to think, where are we developing? And that place quite clearly for us is our city. It’s Manchester.”