Kier and CTP confirm start date for £200m Pall Mall
At a consultation held at Liverpool’s Exchange Station, Kier Property and CTP confirmed plans to start the first office building in its £200m Pall Mall project in spring next year, following a nine-month remediation of Bixteth Gardens due to start in the coming months.
An outline planning application for the entire scheme, which features four buildings delivered across three phases, will be submitted in autumn this year, along with a detailed application for the first building at the site which sits behind Exchange Station.
The first building is a nine-storey office block, while 80,000 sq ft of public realm will also be delivered as part of this phase.
Remediation works to help deliver this first phase will be carried out by Liverpool City Council and is expected to take nine months, while construction of the first phase is programmed at 18 months.
Remediation will be extensive with tunnels running under the site while former platforms and railway lines will need to be excavated to clear the site for development.
Bixteth Gardens will be closed for a period of around two-and-a-half years while construction works are ongoing, but the developers said the project would lead to a net gain in green space and public realm once the project is delivered, providing 80,200 sq ft of public space, compared with 60,000 sq ft currently at the site.
This public space will feature a pavilion which could be used as a café or restaurant, while ground floor space in the commercial developments is also earmarked for retail or leisure.
Pall Mall’s first office will be delivered alongside public realm
Kier Property representatives at the consultation said the construction of the office would be put out to competitive tender, rather than being built by Kier’s construction arm.
This first office is being developed on a speculative basis with no end-user lined up as yet, although the developers added the occupiers could be “a mix of local employers seeking new office space” or “inward investors into Liverpool” and “potentially public-sector”.
Following the delivery of the office, a hotel will form part of the second phase. This building could reach up to around 16 storeys in height, and Colliers International has been instructed to market the hotel to operators, with a number of these already showing interest in the site.
Two further office buildings are planned after the hotel as a third phase, and in total, Pall Mall will deliver 400,000 sq ft of offices. One of these blocks will be circa nine storeys, while the other will likely be taller at around 12 storeys.
Beyond the initial three-phase development, there are also options to expand the site further down the line, although no timescale for this part has been set.
This could feature a mix of residential and a multi-storey car park, with the residential stepping up in height towards Leeds Street, where Elliot Group is set to deliver its three-tower Infinity development, which tops out at 39 storeys.
The professional team on the project includes architect Allies & Morrison alongside landscape architect Re-Form. The consultation, housed in the atrium at Exchange Station, is also set to continue today and will run from 8am to 7pm.
Tom Gilman managing director for the North at Kier Property said: “We are very pleased to have the opportunity to consult further with the local community and businesses in the Pall Mall area. It is important for the city that we deliver the office-element of this scheme and need to get the balance right by creating a high-quality piece of public realm and a green space amenity which can be used by the whole community. Consulting with the people who are most likely to live and work in the space is absolutely the most effective way for us to do this.”
