Oval shapes up for start on Manchester mixed-use scheme
A little under a year after the city council signed off the redevelopment of Albert Bridge House into 800 apartments and 250,000 sq ft of workspace, a formal decision notice has now been issued.
Having signed a Section 106 agreement with Manchester City Council, Oval Real Estate is now armed with planning permission to demolish the modernist Bridge Street office block and build two residential towers of 37 and 49 storeys and a 17-storey office.
As is standard for schemes in Manchester that cite viability as a constraint to delivering on-site affordable homes, Oval’s S106 contains a viability clawback mechanism. This means that the scheme’s viability will be reassessed at a later date to see if contributions up to a maximum of £14m could be made.
While now in possession of a decision notice, Oval could still be a way off starting on site. Given the scale of the scheme, the developer will have to secure Gateway 2 approval from the Building Safety Regulator before work can begin.
The scheme sits just outside the Kendals district being developed by Relentless Developments, Gary Neville’s property company.
Oval had already had plans for the redevelopment of the site approved once before. However, after what the firm described as “significant market changes”, Oval and its architect Studio Egret West went back to the drawing board.
The updated plans feature more than double the number of homes compared to the original version and 100,000 sq ft less office space.
Oval was contacted for comment.
To learn more, search for reference number 143164/FO/2025 on Manchester City Council’s planning portal.
The project team for the scheme features Deloitte as planner, Urban Green, Gardiner & Theobold, AKTII, Hilson Moran, Hoare Lea, Pager Power, CBRE, Savills, Counter Context, Cundall, Turley, Curtins, and DPR.
