Parkside (pink) is the third element of the three-tower cluster. Credit: via planning documents

GMCA lends Renaker £70m for pair of skyscrapers 

The combined authority has agreed loans of £37.5m and £32.4m from its Housing Investment Loans Fund to support the development of almost 1,000 apartments across schemes in the Greengate area of Salford and the Great Jackson Street regeneration zone in Manchester.

Collier’s Yard  

Salford City Council granted consent for the 50-storey tower, comprising 559 apartments, in March. The Greater Manchester Combined Authority has approved a loan of £37.5m for the construction of the skyscraper, which began in November. Renaker’s will be the first building in a 1,500-apartment cluster around Collier Street and Greengate, with outline permission in place for two further towers, both of 42-storeys.

Blade 

One of a pair of 51-storey towers, the other known as Cylinder, approved by Manchester City Council in July. Blade will comprise 414-apartments and is located within the Great Jackson Street regeneration zone on the fringes of the city centre.  

The GMCA has approved a loan of £32.4m for Blade. 

Neither Collier’s Yard nor Blade contains provision for affordable housing.

Following the approval of the loans for Renaker’s projects, the total amount awarded from the fund has surpassed £500m. The four completed towers at Deansgate Square also received large public finance from GMCA housing fund loans.

Blade And Cylinder 2

Blade, left, is one of two Renaker towers approved in July

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Maybe a daft question, but to those in the know: Is there a reason GMCA dish out money to schemes where there isn’t affordable housing?.. seems like an opportunity to push for it.

By STF

Wow talk about dissonance, looks like an alien invasion

By Little Ted

I think that cgi fails to show all of the other tall buildings built and planned for that area. The whole area has been planned for tall towers so in the right context these look really interesting.

By Cityscape

‘Neither Collier’s Yard nor Blade contains provision for affordable housing.’ Will the sales include overseas buyers using them as cladded safety deposit boxes? Seems public money used in this way should have more robust ethics. Just a snip of this money invested by GMCA would help homelessness. The economics are myopic.

By Anonymous

Cheap loans to schemes with no affordable housing , utter madness .

By Wislon

Typical boring facade treatment- this ‘style’ is lazy and isn’t Architecture in my opinion. The Planners should be insisting on quality design.

By ?

Very underwhelmed with the designs. The heritage tower in Salford and St Michael’s in the city centre, close to the town hall are both great examples of design of tall buildings. Been waiting for those 2 builds for years..

By Robert Fuller

Absolute nonsense to talk about ‘affordable housing’on schemes like this . Even the Labour controlled council know this . If you want ‘affordable’ you don’t live in a fifty story apartment in the City Center. Just common sense.

By Realist

Can’t wait for these to be built and add some unique design to this part of ‘Skyscraper ally’. An awful lot happening in Manchester still.

By NewObserver

not really reasonable priced housing then!!

By abolt

What interest rate is the council charging on these loans?

By Meeseeks

Everything is affordable to someone.
The real word is “subsidised”.

By Cathel

More high rise expensive appartments blocks around Salford and Manchester. I looked on Rightmove the other day and the prices for some of the flats in mcr city centre is staggering. The highest prices are the deansgate square south tower where flats go from £300,000 to £800,000 for the flats near the top of the block and penthouses cost only a million quid. Affordable ?

By Darren born bred.

The GMCA lend money to developers. Its not public money in the way that is suggested in the comment above. And as I understand it the ‘profit’ made from developers paying back these loans once the properties are sold is then reinvested into other GM projects such as homelessness.

By Anonymous

Why can’t Renaker get loans from a bank or sell bonds? Public money shouldn’t be financing property developments that private lenders deem too risky. Especially when there is no affordable housing included.

By Frank

No loans available to build council houses and apartments for low-paid under-paid local folk to live in. Strange.

By James Yates

GMCA is not a commercial lender. If Renaker or C C go under who picks up the tab?

By Andy

Look a bloody eyesore manchester lookin like a concrete jungle need some over 60s bungalows not high rise

By Ann grundy

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