Bardsley secures John Dalton House hotel conversion

Contractor Bardsley has started on a project to convert John Dalton House in Manchester into a 261-bed hotel for client QBIC, which will be its first UK hotel outside London.

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

The 5plus-designed project will see Bardsley fully re-clad the existing eight-storey office building 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.

Bardsley hoardings have this week been put up around the site, and the company’s construction management plan suggests the scheme is due to complete in February next year.

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

Bardsley’s deal adds to its growing portfolio of hotel projects in Manchester city centre. In September, the company secured a contract to deliver a Moxy Hotel in Spinningfields, while the company is also delivering a £17m StayCity aparthotel in New Cross.

It also recently completed the £15.5m AC by Marriott Hotel in Ancoats.

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.