Summer start for Liverpool’s 400,000 sq ft Pall Mall
After securing planning permission this week, Kier Property and CTP are aiming to start on the £200m commercial scheme in Liverpool next summer, with a hotel now set to be part of the project’s opening phase.
The developers also confirmed a hotel, due to be operated by Leonardo, will now be included in the first phase, along with an office building and extensive public realm. Place North West revealed Leonardo and Kier had agreed heads of terms on a 281-bedroom hotel at the site in August this year.
The hybrid application for the three-acre city centre site was approved this week by Liverpool City Council; this includes full permission for a 112,000 sq ft office and public realm, along with outline permission for hotel and two further offices.
A reserved matters application to confirm details around the hotel is expected in the first quarter of next year.
Contractor Willmott Dixon is currently on site carrying out remediation and relocating a substation, which has been supported by the city council via the Liverpool City Region’s Single Investment Fund.
A main contractor for the offices or hotels is yet to be appointed but is likely to be chosen via a tender list from Liverpool City Council. Work on the hotel, offices, and public realm is due to begin next summer.
Future phases, covering land stretching to Leeds Street, are likely to include a wider mix of uses including residential and a multi-storey car park.
The development of the site has proved to be controversial, particularly around the remediation of Bixteth Gardens, which is currently being remediated to help support the scheme.
Campaigners unsuccessfully tried to halt the gardens being developed earlier this year; however, it is understood opposition to the scheme has weakened, while a potential judicial review against the remediation of Bixteth Gardens never materialised.
Pall Mall is being backed by Liverpool City Council given the city’s lack of office space within the city centre; the council has identified a “desperate need” for new space and has brought forward a strategic regeneration framework for the city’s commercial business district in an attempt to combat the shortfall.
Mayor of Liverpool, Joe Anderson, said: “The Pall Mall scheme is of huge importance to the development of our Commercial Business District, so I’m delighted it’s now been given planning approval and construction can get started.
“Liverpool city centre needs new Grade A office space to attract companies and highly skilled jobs so we can continue to grow our economy. I’m greatly encouraged by the thinking behind the scheme’s lay out and delighted the emphasis is as much on the high quality of the place and dwell time as it is on the design of the buildings. We’re looking at how we can develop the district over the next 10-20 years and this scheme will act as a catalyst for the future aspirations for the area 2020 and beyond.”
Tom Gilman of Kier Property added there had been “strong occupier interest” for the office space.
The professional team on the project includes architect Allies & Morrison, along with landscape architect Re-form. Colliers and Worthington Owen are the agents.
File under ‘good news’.
Now let’s get it built.
By Sceptical
council have confirmed spring start
By Anonymous
Now what are we doing to expand the airport to attract the airlines from Asia, India and north’s America?
By Stuart wood
Too late for that I’m afraid Stuart.
By Anon
Another mall/hotel/office space? Seriously. There’s a shed load of them in the city centre. Was it really worth them demoing the one green space that nearby office workers and people that lived in the flats on pall mall had? Also, how’s this going to be any different from the abandoned China Town development or any of the other half done but never completed developments that dodgy Joe has okayed?
By Martin
It’s not a Mall it is commercial space on the ground floor to help animate the area, it is desperately needed new office space, the visitor economy is booming more hotels needed and there is green space being enhanced.
By Accept it!
Suck it up @Martin, you seem to have spat your dummy out. Great news this.
By Anonymous
Martin, I suggest you take a trip to Manchester some time. The amount of new offices flying up there is off the scale. Liverpool has one single modern office development planned at the moment, and this is it. The future of the city is at stake here. Please take off your blinkers and try to see the bigger picture.
By Morgan
Great news! We have to push harder to get these going. Keep planning the next phase. Doesn’t matter how you deliver them, just do it, and keep them coming. And get the JLA Merseyrail link planned in too!
By Liverpolitan
Morgan the development in Manchester is what’s killing it. Liverpool shouldn’t follow the same path, it’s currently a nice place to live and visit, plonking buildings everywhere is not good. They wouldn’t in Barcelona.
By Floyd
@Morgan absolutely. Good news for Liverpool but before we get too excited check out the Mcr filter on PNW to see the £b in office/retail/residential. Politicos here need to pull fingers out and work together
By LEighteen
Great news for Liverpool! Hopefully it’ll be the catalyst for new business generation and confidence for other developers to follow suit and provide more desperately needed new office stock.
By Buildandtheywillcome
Won’t happen without pre-sale of investment or the Council financially underwriting it. Kier’s stated policy is to exit development . Has CTP got the resources to fund it? More detail needed before everyone gets excited
By Anonymous
Floyd, Barcelona is a densely packed continential city. Filling its inner core with lots of offices, apartments and commercial space is exactly what they have done and continue to do. And anyway, the green space is being replaced in the same manner as Chavasse Park was, ie a patch of scabby grass making way for a well managed park.
By Morgan
Liverpool is a port first and foremost and by virtue of this geographical fact it will never be the centre of the North’s economy because we don’t export enough these days. I hope that will change. Manchester is lucky to be half way between Liverpool and Leeds and that is why it is booming.Manchester also has a big international airport and unfortunately that makes a difference. I personally wish Manchester and Liverpool would grow up and work together to form an economic epicentre of about 5 million people. Yet they both seem to harp on about which is better? which has a better centre? a better football culture?better music? Both are cities with all those things on offer tenfold. They are England’s two greatest regional cities and could achieve so much together.
By Elephant
The POL, is about to experience even more growth as a result of several factors, repositioning of the major Shipping lines, the increased use of L2 and it’s environs plus the looming brexit saga which actually bring more trade to the POL.
Add to this the continuing disruption at most of the Southern ports and the future looks bright for the LCR and hopefully more commercial property to house their activiities, all good news for Liverpool!
By Neptune
Office development zones usually become ghost towns after 5pm. I feel the Pall Mall zone would greatly benefit from having a high quality cultural venue at its heart. The North West of England is lacking a Opera House. Think of the Sydney Opera House or the New York Met.
By Henry
All very well, but the main building looks like most buildings in Liverpool; a warehouse with Windows. Depresseping. Liverpools 2 best buildings are: the new clatterbridge and the stair well in the car park just off Bold street. The best buildings in the KQ are the Morgan Sinhala porter cabins
By George