First images of Kings Dock Mill
Liverpool property firm LAGP has revealed the first images of its Kings Dock Mill scheme in Liverpool's L1 district.
The £25m scheme consists of a 135-room budget hotel alongside 177 apartments and will occupy the site of the former Porter Bros warehouse on Tabley Street. Planning consent was achieved this summer for the eight-storey development, which will feature town houses at ground level with a mixture of one and two bedroom apartments above.
Jonathan Prichard, company director and principal at Liverpool-based architectural practice LAG Prichard commented: "Mixed-use is key to successful city centre developments, but our preferred option was to avoid leisure usage at ground level and adapt the Liverpool warehouse vernacular to create modern town houses, with apartments above."
Despite the close proximity of the development to the Windsor Group's collapsed Baltic Triangle scheme, which foundered last year following a protracted dispute between the client and contractor, Prichard remains confident that the L1 area will be a success: "This scheme has been two years in conception, the success of our previous scheme at nearby Cleveland Square has provided us with a good understanding of the city-living marketplace in this area and Kings Dock Mill will be pitched squarely at the first-time buyer market."
Details of the hotel operator are expected to be announced shortly with speculation that a major brand has already been secured to run what is expected to be a limited-services hotel.
Prichard said Grosvenor's £950m retail-led Paradise Street development as well as the new Arena and Conference Centre Liverpool were major factors in the viability of developing the hotel concept as part of the overall scheme.
Prichard was also quick to credit the role played by public-private urban regeneration company, Liverpool Vision: "They have provided a good link through to the many stakeholders concerned with bringing forward a development of this kind. Barry McGorry in the development team proved invaluable in helping us realise the best possible scheme for this site."
Previous occupiers of the two-acre site include flag manufacturer Porter Bros, which is reported to be relocating to nearby Duke Street following a recent management buy-out of the firm. A £5.4m finance package for Kings Dock Mill was provided by Manchester-based Investec Private Bank's Structured Property Finance division.
Demolition of the existing industrial buildings is expected to begin in November with a start on-site in January 2008.
