Bashar Issa has confirmed two towers, one 40 stories and the other 25 stories will be built on a section of the Greengate site. The rest of the proposal will include a seven-storey hotel and an eight-storey residential podium.
The full article is below.
After years of largely behind-the-scenes work on planning, young property entrepreneur Bashar Issa will next month submit his detailed planning application for the Canopus scheme in Salford.
The project knits into Ask Developments’ Exchange Greengate and features towers up to 40 storeys tall. So confident is Issa of planning consent that contractors are already on site.
‘We’re 10 metres underground already,’ he says. Canopus was originally conceived around a 62-storey skyscraper, but Issa had to settle for 40 floors in the face of objections from the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment.
‘I don’t know why, but CABE just felt it was not really the best place for a tower of that size,’ says Issa. His £200m scheme was revised and is set for planning approval in late October. Canopus will sit next to the five-star Lowry Hotel, a short walk from Deansgate, Spinningfields and Manchester Cathedral.
Issa’s firm, BSC, which stands for British Standard Consultancy, will transform land bounded by New Bridge Street, the River Irwell and Greengate with a family of buildings around Greengate Square.
A seven-storey hotel, eight-storey residential podium and towers of 25 and 40 storeys will contain more than 400 homes – including 150 apartment-hotel units – 220 hotel rooms, 300 car parking spaces, and 30,000 sq ft (2,787 sq m) of offices and retail, with the balance towards retail.
A further 700 car parking spaces on 2.5 acres (1 ha) of Salford City Council’s land will be replaced elsewhere if plans to turn it into landscaped gardens are also approved.
‘We are structuring a deal with the council to relocate surface car parking on their land to put parking in new buildings and use the land for open landscaping, both hard and soft,’ explains Issa.
Urban landscape
All the Canopus buildings will be on 1.25 acres (0.5 ha) acquired from investor Oakglade Properties 12 months ago. BSC’s involvement in the site began five years ago with an option to acquire the land from Oakglade subject to outline planning consent.
Planning permission was granted in 2000 and renewed in 2004. It is no wonder Issa is keen to get started.
‘We have been on site for three months and as soon as we get planning we will build it out in one,’ he says.
Issa has already made a splash with plans for the residential Sarah Tower in Piccadilly. Both Sarah Tower and Canopus are named after his wife, Canopus being the name of the second brightest star in the sky and translating into Arabic as Souhail, his wife’s maiden name.
It is no doubt that family is important to Issa, 28, whose father and uncle built up various commercial interests, chiefly steel mills in China. Previous property ventures by the family include hotels in the south of France and Middle East.
Issa, who lives in Manchester, sees his own emerging portfolio as quite distinct from that of his family. As well as UK schemes he is currently pursuing a series of acquisitions in the US, starting in August with the Statler Towers in Buffalo, New York State.
Back in Manchester, his emerging portfolio of residential schemes includes projects in Ancoats and the Northern Quarter. Give it a couple of more years and the name Canopus will need no introduction – and nor will Issa.
For further information on the proposal and renders, please see the Greengate thread.
PS. Yes, I know there is a Greengate thread already, but the Canopus proposal deserves it's own thread. The planning application will be available to view shortly (October) and construction will commence straightaway once planning permission is hopefully approved. So this thread will be needed sooner rather than later.
The full article is below.
After years of largely behind-the-scenes work on planning, young property entrepreneur Bashar Issa will next month submit his detailed planning application for the Canopus scheme in Salford.
The project knits into Ask Developments’ Exchange Greengate and features towers up to 40 storeys tall. So confident is Issa of planning consent that contractors are already on site.
‘We’re 10 metres underground already,’ he says. Canopus was originally conceived around a 62-storey skyscraper, but Issa had to settle for 40 floors in the face of objections from the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment.
‘I don’t know why, but CABE just felt it was not really the best place for a tower of that size,’ says Issa. His £200m scheme was revised and is set for planning approval in late October. Canopus will sit next to the five-star Lowry Hotel, a short walk from Deansgate, Spinningfields and Manchester Cathedral.
Issa’s firm, BSC, which stands for British Standard Consultancy, will transform land bounded by New Bridge Street, the River Irwell and Greengate with a family of buildings around Greengate Square.
A seven-storey hotel, eight-storey residential podium and towers of 25 and 40 storeys will contain more than 400 homes – including 150 apartment-hotel units – 220 hotel rooms, 300 car parking spaces, and 30,000 sq ft (2,787 sq m) of offices and retail, with the balance towards retail.
A further 700 car parking spaces on 2.5 acres (1 ha) of Salford City Council’s land will be replaced elsewhere if plans to turn it into landscaped gardens are also approved.
‘We are structuring a deal with the council to relocate surface car parking on their land to put parking in new buildings and use the land for open landscaping, both hard and soft,’ explains Issa.
Urban landscape
All the Canopus buildings will be on 1.25 acres (0.5 ha) acquired from investor Oakglade Properties 12 months ago. BSC’s involvement in the site began five years ago with an option to acquire the land from Oakglade subject to outline planning consent.
Planning permission was granted in 2000 and renewed in 2004. It is no wonder Issa is keen to get started.
‘We have been on site for three months and as soon as we get planning we will build it out in one,’ he says.
Issa has already made a splash with plans for the residential Sarah Tower in Piccadilly. Both Sarah Tower and Canopus are named after his wife, Canopus being the name of the second brightest star in the sky and translating into Arabic as Souhail, his wife’s maiden name.
It is no doubt that family is important to Issa, 28, whose father and uncle built up various commercial interests, chiefly steel mills in China. Previous property ventures by the family include hotels in the south of France and Middle East.
Issa, who lives in Manchester, sees his own emerging portfolio as quite distinct from that of his family. As well as UK schemes he is currently pursuing a series of acquisitions in the US, starting in August with the Statler Towers in Buffalo, New York State.
Back in Manchester, his emerging portfolio of residential schemes includes projects in Ancoats and the Northern Quarter. Give it a couple of more years and the name Canopus will need no introduction – and nor will Issa.
For further information on the proposal and renders, please see the Greengate thread.
PS. Yes, I know there is a Greengate thread already, but the Canopus proposal deserves it's own thread. The planning application will be available to view shortly (October) and construction will commence straightaway once planning permission is hopefully approved. So this thread will be needed sooner rather than later.