X1 launches Manchester Waters resi scheme
X1 Developments has launched a 755-apartment scheme within the Peel-owned Manchester Waters site, advertising completions from the first quarter of 2019.
Manchester Waters, made up of the 22-acre Pomona Island and adjacent land around the Cornbrook tram stop, is a key strategic asset for Peel. A long, oval-shaped parcel of land between the Bridgewater Canal and Manchester Ship Canal, bookended by the Pomona Metrolink station at the southern end and St George’s Island at the top, it has been divided up into 11 developments plots, eight of them residential.
According to X1’s website, the project is being delivered “in partnership with Peel”, however it is understood that X1 is representing the developer as agent on the scheme.
In April this year, Vista, the residential property fund set up by Countrywide and Hermes Investment Management, agreed a £23m deal to forward-purchase the first phase, a 168-apartment scheme by Rowlinson Construction at the St George’s Island end.
Peel’s submission to the Trafford Local Plan in March 2014 set a target of 2,500 dwellings for Pomona Island, a target it later raised to 3,000. The key project in improving access to the site is the Cornbrook Hub, a 5.6-acre plot around the Cornbrook station.
X1 has developed a fruitful relationship with Peel. Working with Knight Knox, it is on-site with a 1,100-apartment scheme next to MediaCityUK, while it has delivered at the Eastbank site off Manchester’s Great Ancoats Street and is lined up for a proposed scheme at Chatham Waters in Kent.
