Factory design budget set out

Manchester City Council has published a detailed breakdown of more than £9.5m in fees for designing the new £110m arts venue in the emerging St John’s district.

Seven different packages of works were competed for under a tender contest launched last July, covering architectural services, building services, engineer services, mechanical and electrical consultancy, structural and civil engineering, cost consultancy and employer’s agent, fire engineer, theatre consultant, and acoustic engineering services.

According to the council’s procurement department, bids were judged 30% on cost and 70% on quality of service.

The winners and estimated fees were:

  • Architectural services | Office for Metropolitan Architecture, Rotterdam: £4m
  • Theatre consultant | Charcoalblue, London: £1.2m
  • Structural and civil engineering | Buro Happold, Manchester: £1.25m
  • Building services engineer | Buro Happold: £1.25m
  • Cost consultant and employer’s agent | Gardiner & Theobald, Manchester: £1.3m
  • Fire engineer services | WSP Parsons Brinckerhoff, Manchester: £100,000
  • Acoustic engineer services | Arup, Manchester: £420,000

The Government has pledged £9m a year to run the venue and £78m towards construction costs. It is normal in development to spend 10% of the total budget for a new building on consultants.

Construction of the new theatre and performance centre is due to begin this year. Completion is scheduled for 2019.

Factory will provide a cultural visitor attraction to anchor the residential-led St John’s, being developed in a joint venture between Manchester City Council and property company Allied London on land formerly occupied by ITV Granada before it moved to Media City UK.

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Can anyone recall what the split in quality vs cost was when MCC were procuring consultants for HOME? I seem to recall there being some controversy at the time – justified in view of the end result.

By PNW reader

Juicy central gov subsidy there.

I wonder if this will be as good as Urbis?

By sba

Are the Government funding any other schemes such as this in the North West?

By Man on bicycle

You cannot be serious………!!!!!!

By don draper

Government subsidy for arts and culture outside London is a fraction of what it is within unfortunately. Only National Museums Liverpool does ok with double the annual subsidy mentioned in the article at about £20m p/a (and even then you’d have to say it’s insufficient). Most other places are fighting for scraps.

By abc

It’s a pity, we have already seen cost cutting measures at some of our more notable galleries etc across the North West, let us hope this is not the last of such funding..

By Man on bicycle

ABC is correct.This is another plan by the government to divert attention from the billions of hand outs London gets.

By Elephant

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