INTERVIEW | Beetham’s Hugh Frost on developing skyscrapers at 74

A year on from announcing his sensational return to development with plans for Liverpool’s tallest building, Beetham founder Hugh Frost sat down with Place North West to discuss what tempted him back.

Frost is embarking on the biggest, most taxing project of his career at the age of 74. Over lunch at Panoramic 34 in Liverpool’s West Tower, he explained how his latest scheme came about, why Liverpool needs a new statement building, and what possessed him to return to the gruelling world skyscrapers. 

“One simple answer is that I have nothing else to do,” Frost joked. Another is that he has unfinished business to take care of.

A frustrated observer

Liverpool’s 40-storey West Tower, the city’s tallest building and the last Frost developed, was a “financial disaster”, completing as it did in 2008 amid the chaos of the global financial crash.

“We were wiped out. The only thing I salvaged was the restaurant, which wasn’t making any money,” he said.

“I gave it to my wife as a poison chalice, and she turned it around and made it successful. Since about 2012 or 2013, I’ve just been sitting up here eating, looking out the window.”

From his preferred table there is a perfect view of King Edward Triangle, an industrial estate located on an island site between the central business district and the waterfront.

It is on this plot, part of Peel’s Liverpool Waters, that Frost and Davos Property, the development arm of TJ Morris, want to deliver a cluster of tall buildings befitting a city of Liverpool’s global standing.

“Liverpool historically was a fantastic city,” Frost said.

“Those of us who love it still think it is a fantastic city, and it should therefore have fantastic buildings.”

Over the last 10 years or more, Frost has watched “with envy” as Manchester has outpaced his beloved Liverpool in development terms, transforming its skyline with a series of glass towers.

Meanwhile, Frost has been dismayed at “horrendous” impact of Liverpool’s fractional sales market, which has “given rise to a litter of half-finished developments”, while the city council struggles to recover from the reputational damage caused by recent allegations of impropriety.

“Everybody hears of the scandal and I think investors are put off by that,” he said.

The wider scheme would feature Liverpool’s tallest tower. Credit: Infinite 3D

The next big thing

Despite being a frustrated observer of Liverpool’s development journey in recent years, Frost has long been convinced of the potential for something special at King Edward Triangle.

“I’ve looked out of this window here and thought that has got to be the next development [but] you can’t really influence anything without having a stake. You’ve got to have some skin in it somewhere.”

The £1bn scheme he is now progressing came together slowly and all at once. He acquired a plot adjacent to Peel’s King Edward Triangle in 2019 but five years of subsequent talks with Peel to find a way of progressing the site yielded nothing.

Frost, who became a septuagenarian while those talks were ongoing, did at times wonder whether his energy might be better spent elsewhere.

Enter Tom Morris, billionaire owner of TJ Morris, who Frost learned had got his hands on a piece of land next door to King Edward Triangle. Keen to break the impasse with Peel, Frost wasted no time in inviting him to lunch to discuss a way to bring the whole site forward and deliver something significant for the city.

He entered the discussion, which naturally took place overlooking the coveted site in the restaurant at West Tower, more in hope than expectation and was surprised when Morris said he would be interested in making an offer to buy Peel out “if the price was right”.

“I was almost gobsmacked. Suddenly, there was a real chance that we were now into doing something that was meaningful,” he said.

King Edward Triangle has long been earmarked for a tall building cluster. Credit: Google Earth

Lofty ambitions

With the site secured. Plans for the project were worked up. Multiple tall buildings including a skyline-altering 60+ storey effort – which Frost says the council is fully behind despite its own tall buildings policy capping the authority’s aspirations at 50 floors – that would be the jewel in the scheme’s crown.

“It’s ambitious and, to a certain degree, a leap of faith, because the market for the sort of thing we’re hoping to do isn’t there yet,” Frost said.

“It was always the intention [for the site] to be part of Liverpool Waters. But we are where we are, and it would not have happened for a long time if Tom and I hadn’t agreed to take it off Peel.”

It is not all about apartments. Frost and Davos are trying to convince “anyone who sees the value” to stump up millions to “drop and cap” the part of the Strand that currently cuts off King Edward Triangle from the rest of the city.

It is hoped that doing this could have a similar impact in terms of knitting the project together as Liverpool ONE, which is regularly held up as an example of how to get placemaking right.

While plans for the first building at King Edward Triangle – a 26-storey “pathfinder” development – are close to being submitted, work on the wider masterplan is ongoing.

As well as residential skyscrapers, the vision also features plans for a five-star hotel and cultural centre. Early thinking for the latter was based on the idea of Abba Voyage, the immersive entertainment concept in London, Frost said.

A Beatles version “would be phenomenal” but is unlikely to happen, he conceded.

“I think that’s going to be tricky, but to get an immersive entertainment centre there would really help create the place,” Frost said.

Looking ahead

Frost’s motivation for returning to the cut-and-thrust world of development is multi-faceted.

He is undoubtedly partly driven by a desire to go out on a high after the West Tower debacle; no property developer worth his salt wants to end his career on a low point.

His love for Liverpool and his frustration at the city having being left behind other regional centres also drives him.

But perhaps the thing motivating Frost the most is a desire to rid himself of the boredom of sitting on the sidelines.

“The camaraderie of actually doing something like this is fantastic,” he said.

“I would just like to be relevant and feel as though [I am] doing something that has real relevance. Because what will this do for the city…It’s so good, isn’t it?

“All I need to do is stay alive.”