Allied London continues St John’s growth
The latest consultation event for St John’s revealed concept designs for a mixed-use building on Liverpool Road, with a Rotterdam-inspired project providing a link between the two listed Campfield Market warehouses.
The developer acquired Castlefield House, a 32,000 sq ft office, from Property Alliance Group earlier this year, as part of the extension of its St John’s masterplan towards Deansgate which was endorsed by Manchester City Council this week.
The £1bn St John’s regeneration area will now absorb the Museum of Science & Industry complex, and the listed Upper Campfield Market and Lower Campfield Market which sit either side of Castlefield House.
Lower Campfield Market is currently used as MOSI’s air and space gallery, and under Allied London’s plans would be reworked to create a multi-use space, incorporating events and flexible work areas, still centred around the MOSI collection.
For the vacant Upper Campfield Market, Allied London has worked with joint venture partner Manchester City Council on a concept called Union City, which would focus on food occupiers.
Levitt Bernstein has designed the rebuild of Castlefield House, which incorporates flats and a market inspired by the Rotterdam Market Hall.
Manchester Quays, the joint venture between Allied London and the council, has been working on plans for the 13-acre former ITV Granada site since 2013, which is set to include a tower cluster containing 2,500 homes, 600,000 sq ft of commercial space and cultural facilities. The regeneration framework has now been updated to include the £110m Factory cultural centre. The public realm designs around St John’s would be amended to integrate with the MOSI estate, which is also planning a new gallery and open space improvements.
SimpsonHaugh & Partners is the masterplan architect.
At the consultation event, Allied London chief executive Mike Ingall gave an overview of the changes, and said that an additional “four or five” planning applications would be submitted in the coming months. Plans for the conversion of the Bonded Warehouse into workspace, a residential element known as South Village, and the conversion of Old Granada Studios into a hotel have already been approved.
Due to the dominance of the Factory, what was previously going to be residential in the surrounding area has now been earmarked for commercial space. According to Ingall, on completion St John’s will include 800,000 sq ft of workspace, which is being branded as Enterprise City.
Happy this block is being developed but based on that model the scale seems a bit large for the surroundings
By Bradford
TOO big for the location by the market.
By Schwyz