Renaker to secure £120m for pair of Manchester skyscrapers
The loans take the amount the developer has received from the Greater Manchester Combined Authority’s housing investment fund beyond the £500m mark.
The GMCA will meet on Friday to approve loans totalling £140m to support the delivery of two towers. The £140m figure is made up of a £120m “minimum commitment”, with the possibility of this rising to £140m should £20m of surplus become available, according to a GMCA report.
One of two towers that make up Renaker’s Contour scheme at Great Jackson Street is earmarked for £69.3m. The development would provide 494 apartments across 51 floors.
Renaker is also seeking up to £70.8m for one of four towers at the 1,950-home Trinity Islands off Regent Road. This building would provide 532 apartments within a 60-storey building.
The developer has already secured £65m for a 55-storey tower within the Trinity Islands cluster.
To date, GMCA has committed £388.2m of lending across eight Renaker developments, which will deliver a total of 4,647 new homes.
The Contour and Trinity Islands schemes in line to secure funding this week will add another 1,000 homes towards the GM fund’s 10,000-home target.
Neither of the developments feature affordable homes but Renaker is providing £1.6m by way of a Section 106 contribution for off-site discounted homes.
If the loans are approved, the value of loan offers during the lifespan of the GMHILF will rise to £942.5m. Of this, Renaker will have benefited from £508m.
Great to see Manchester investing in affordable housing.
By Anonymous
I am reading this right, one developer (Renekar) will have benefited from over 53% of the total GMHILF loans? And there are no affordable housing in any of Renekar’s schemes.
By Anonymous
They do seem great schemes as long as the demand is there, although I really hope people are crunching the numbers with open eyes and GMCA aren’t at risk with any of this- I am sure Renaker are making a tidy profit in the meantime!
By JB
Just realised where Trinity Island was. That’s at the end of Regent rd and is already half way up I think. I hope the buyers know that little car park by TK Maxx could be home to a 240m+ and they’re gonna be dwarfed.
By Anonymous
And long may it continue. This is how it should be done. Lend money to a solid developer who delivers houses without delay or going bust. Council gets the money back with interest. Recycle that money back into other developments and the pot grows along with the cities housing supply. Rinse and repeat.
By Bob
They all look the same though
By Anonymous
Seems rather a lot of Money to lend to one developer for no affordable housing. One assumes the money will be repaid in full with interest but if any of the projects don’t go according to plan this doesn’t look great. Don’t put all your eggs in tall grey glass baskets. What off that £500m had been lent to affordable housing providers? Could the net public benefit have been greater?
By Anon
Why is the GMCA supporting unsustainable developments that won’t house Manchester people? Why can’t we have 5 storey apartment blocks like proper European cities?
By Anonymous
So this is more support from the taxpayer (yes, cheap money is support) for a highly successful developer which refuses – apparently as a matter of policy – to meet its affordable housing requirements. £1.6 million towards off-site is a tiny drop in the ocean given the number of units involved.
Hopefully MCC will start enforcing its own policy on this when the personnel responsible move on, although it may be too big a culture change for them.
By Rotringer
I can’t understand why people like Rotringer can’t join up the dots. The viability appraisals for the renekar schemes are public and you and others can integrate and challenge them and them. The fact that they need CA support to get off the ground can only support this surely!! How many people can be involved in a conspiracy………where all the decisions are made publicly. Come on get a grip for goodness sake
By Conspiracy
Excellent new, and a lot more to come. Eee, t’poower people of Moston can’t afford t’pentous . No,… No they can’t. It’s called market economics but there’s plenty of people around here that can afford them. Droning on about affordable housing here is completely irrelevant. Bev has already talked extensively about plans for more affordable housing and guess what ..this ain’t it.
By Boreoff
I can’t think of any other city in the western world that builds identical skyscrapers one after the other. Maybe Vancouver but at least they have balconies and look nice
By Anonymous
Just make a couple of observations for the grumbles here – you can’t build a skyscraper if you don’t have all the funding, because you can’t stop it halfway like you can with estate houses. Then if you think about this as an investment in a large number of high tariff council tax units then it’s a sound fiscal investment. I think from memory MCCs council tax receipts went up 100% in the last 10 years, but Leeds only 60%. That shields services to the vulnerable, and stops you becoming Nottingham or Birmingham.
By Rich X
These apartments are so energy intensive
By Josh Burns
Renaker is the largest developer in Machester constantly delivering on time or early.
They can sell their £50m apartment blocks and GMCA makes it back + interest to reinvest in more developments.
No idea why people are complaining – they wouldn’t build them if no one bought them.
By Anonymous
This is not in keeping with providing affordable housing I understood affordable house was greater Manchester policy.
By Anonymous
If I were a multi million profit making company, seeking to spike property prices while selling my wares to pension funds, where might I apply for hundreds of millions of cheap public subsidised loans intended for infrastructure?
By John
Build skyscrapers at both ends of the city centre giving the illusion that the city centre is massive. In reality just marginally bigger than Liverpool city centre. Clever really!
By IMLH
Renaker the MVP
By Giant Skyscraper Fan
Am I on my own, in feeling irritated with the affordable housing mantra? I have worked and paid tax.since 1981. I cannot afford to live in Central Manchester. I accept that rents in the city are too high for key workers, but there are already 9 million people in this country contributing nothing to the economy, and with the exception of retired people and disabled people, why should fit healthy people be a priority for affordable housing, in the centre of most successful regional economy in the country? If you want to live in M1, M2, M3 or M4, work harder, and earn more.
By Elephant
If it is such a good investment why can’t they get private money?
By Anonymous
IMLH, city centre is expanding greatly, that’s what building is all about, skyscrapers don’t do that on their own.
By IMMH
Yes IMLH, because all Mancs want is for their city to appear bigger than Liverpool. Give me strength!
By Anonymous
Seems an incredible amount of money from one semi government lender to one developer. How do their directors approve this? No company requirements to limit how much one developer takes on?
Sounds fantastic when it’s working, financial lunacy when a recession hits and left with the fall out.
By My name
Bit of tough love there from elephant I’m sure……but the bigger issue is who do you think is living in all these new ‘luxery’ flats in the city centre………how many millioaires actually live in Manchester. Not enough to fill that lot. So it must largely be normal working people who are living in these luxery apartments……and good for them whether they buy or choose to rent
By Really
The affordable housing bleaters are out in force. Bore off. Affordable housing should not be put on premium real estate. It’s a mental notion.
By Tom
I’ve no issue with no affordable on site but we have missed out on millions in off site contributions that would allow delivery elsewhere.
By Notions