Urban & Civic tasks Howells with Renaissance project
Glenn Howells Architects is understood to be working up plans for the Renaissance hotel site on Manchester’s Deansgate on behalf of developer Urban & Civic, beating SimpsonHaugh and Eric Parry in a design competition held earlier this year.
Urban & Civic acquired the prominent building in 2014, and launched the architectural competition at the start of this year.
The 1.9-acre site currently houses a 203-bedroom hotel, along with 26,700 sq ft of offices and 399 car parking spaces. Marriott has a management agreement that runs to the end of 2019 for the hotel.
On acquiring the site – which, like U&C’s other Manchester interest, the former Origin site, is a former West Properties project – the developer said it intended to start a phased development in either 2017 or 2018.
Urban & Civic and Glenn Howells declined or were unavailable to comment. Details of the proposals are yet to emerge, although has been rumoured to feature lower floors of retail units, underneath a tower for residential and hotel use.
The site is near to both the House of Fraser department store on Deansgate, and Manchester’s high-end shopping district of New Cathedral Street, which features both Selfridges and Harvey Nichols.
I can’t believe that this building which was erected sometime in the 1960’s has never had an external paint job or been reclad. It is not suited to the damp climate in Manchester and gets dirtier with every passing downpour. Same story with the Premier Travel Inn (North Tower) nearby. This tower has not been painted since PTI took over the building over a decade ago. There is a lot of new build in the area and these filthy looking 1960’s behemoths are a blight on the landscape. There is a similar white concrete 1960’s office building, across the road from the newly built New Bailey office block, which is managed by Bruntwood. This building seems to get an external paint every couple of years.
By Anthony Fallon
Well said Anthony, nothing short of a disgrace.
By phildered
Is UGLY beyond belief and I can not wait for it to be developed. Was always badly maintained…
By Schwyz