Kampus street plans revealed

A public realm area along Little David Street will be at the centre of the £150m Kampus development at Aytoun Street in Manchester, delivered by joint venture partners Capital & Centric and Henry Boot Developments.

The street, which runs between the 19^th Century warehouses Minshulls Mill and Minto & Turner, has been closed to the public for decades. A CGI released by the joint venture shows the street re-opened and featuring a range of independent bars and restaurants in the ground floor of the listed mill buildings.

The JV was selected as the preferred purchaser of Manchester Metropolitan University’s former Aytoun Street site in March 2014 and have rebranded the scheme Kampus. The plot currently has 250,000 sq ft of vacant space across seven university buildings.

A strategic regeneration framework for the site was approved by the Manchester City Council executive last month. The plan focuses on a mix of uses, including residential, restaurants, hotels and aparthotels, along with workspace and ground floor retail activity to tie-in with the nearby Village.

The final scheme is expected to total 450,000 sq ft, providing up to 500 homes and two hotels. The current library building will be converted into offices, and the 1960s tower used to house the hotel and apartments. The former lecture building will be demolished to make way for a public realm space.

Adam Higgins, co-founder of Capital & Centric, said: “The philosophy at Kampus is to deliver nothing but the best in architectural design. It’s by doing this that we can create a new destination, community and an entirely new offer for city centre living and trading.”

Adam Brady, head of the Manchester office at Henry Boot, said: “We’re not looking to create another Northern Quarter, Spinningfields, Shoreditch or anywhere else here, Kampus will be a distinctive sub-district with its own individual vibe.”