Gorton Street Arches, Progressive Living, p planning docs

Railway arches are increasingly being seen by developers as an opportunity to increase amenity space. Credit: via planning documents

Progressive submits arch plans to complement Greengate tower 

The developer is planning to refurbish eight railway arches into commercial space to serve its proposed 41-storey co-living scheme.

Progressive Living submitted plans for the 568-home scheme in Salford’s Greengate district last year. At the time, the developer said part of the scheme would see adjoining railway arches owned by Network Rail revamped.

Now, an application for this part of the project has been lodged. The scheme would see a series of arches, converted into retail and F&B units.

Progressive is seeking flexible consent so that the use of the arches can change over time in accordance with market trends.

Potential uses include restaurants, microbreweries, art galleries, education space, gyms, or bars.

Turley and BDP are advising Progressive on the proposals.

Progressive’s plans to bring the disused railway arches back into use is the second scheme of its type in Greengate.

Last year, the Arch Company submitted plans to convert 10 derelict arches on Norton Street in the Salford neighbourhood into food, drink, retail, and leisure spaces.

David Fairclough, director at Progressive Living, said: “This submission, along with the earlier application for the development of the car park as a co-living scheme, completes our vision for the comprehensive delivery of the Gorton Street car park and arches.

“The proposals include completing and connecting the Riverside Walk from New Bridge Street through to Greengate and activation of the Railway arches for leisure and commercial uses. This relates well to proposals for the wider Greengate area, particularly proposed works to the Norton Street arches and Greengate Park and we are pleased to be playing our part in placing some of the final pieces of the Greengate regeneration jigsaw”.

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All very positive. This part of the city centre is second only to Deansgate sq and Jackson St with the number of talls but it’s early days for the streetscape below these skyscrapers. Doing something like this really starts to build a district and a community and that’s what Greengate needs more of. Great start.

By Luke skyscraper

Great. They should be doing the same on all of the Whitworth Street West arches adjacent to First Street

By Steve

If you’ve ever been down Borough Market you’ll know how potential is here.

By Rich X

It’d be nice if the tower facade had the same brick (or at least shades of the bricks) from the arches rather than the jarring red orange it currently has. That would be far more complimentary with the rest of the cluster (and harmonise well with the Embankment scheme).

By Anonymous

Borough market is a good analogy

By Elephant

This is a really good use of space and will add a lot to the location. Hope it gets the nod.

By Dan H

Manchester is a seriously cool city, can’t wait to visit again. It is a mini-London, like it or loathe it.

By Anonymous

Luke Skyscraper, Deansgate Square is too windy to ever have a successful streetscape

By James

Couldn’t agree more with Luke, as i have an investment in the Embankment Exchange, it’s just what the area needs. The change in Greengate is amazing from a few years ago and will be a superb location to live in for work and play in the city due to its location to the centre of town.

By Citizen

I daresay that the Greengate towers have and will have a much better street-level feel than the windswept towers at Deansgate Square.

By Human Experience

Steve @ 1:50pm – There used to be a lot of the arches used on Whitworth St, however many businesses moved out when the announcement was made to widen the railway line and platforms at Oxford Rd. This never happened in the end.

By red rose

Simpson-Haugh should learn from OMI about how to create skyscrapers which have ground floor interaction. I only wish they’d learned this lesson before designing Deansgate Square, The Green, Lighthouse etc.

By Anonymous

Yes it would be great to have something like this around Deansgate square but they are starting to improve it despite the occasional blah blah..wind blah blah…it will be amazing a few years from now when all the plots are built. I like the Borough market analogy at Greengate too. Still a lot to do but lord the changes around there since I rolled off the train at Exchange Station …err quite some time ago.

By Anonymous

Greengate is turning out much better than Deansgate Square, quite simply because more planning has gone into Greengate whereas Deansgate is more developer-driven with only very loose planning input from MCC (this is pretty typical).

By Anonymous

Not developer driven? Nonsense this is as development driven as any large site in or around the city centre. This idea happens to be a good one though , thanks to the developers.

By Anonymous

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