Piccadilly Tower | Ducie Street | 188m | 58 floors

[LongRipple]

Originally Posted by Farsight

It never ceases to surprise me that with transport links being so important and all, the area north-ish of Piccadilly Station has remained a wasteland for decades. Does anybody know why?

Most likely due to the land speculators who bought up single plots in anticipation of Manchester being successful in its Olympic bid back in the 90’s as discussed here a few weeks back.

When you consider much of the larger post-bombing development in Manchester (fully endorsed and co-funded by MCC), it has revolved around large land holdings both by itself & public bodies as well as other larger companies.

• Angel Meadow (old Co-op warehousing plots)
• Castlefield (Peel Holdings/Manchester Ship Canal Co)
• First St (British Gas/Council owned?)
• Fishdock & Greengate/Exchange Station (NetworkRail)
• Green Quarter (NetworkRail land?)
• Moss side/Hulme/Cardroom estate/New Islington (regeneration of Public Housing plots)
• NOMA (Co-op owned)
• Smithfield (Old market holdings)
• Spinningfields (old Art School/University sites bought up by Allied London around 1997)

I understand that the city centre redevelopment post-bombing (1996) involved a lot of coercion and compulsory-purchasing aided by central government to make it happen. Something the likes of Eric Pickles and the Coalition are evidently not inclined to do these days across the wider city to deliver necessary improvements i.e. London Road Fire Station.

The same issues of absentee landlords have stymied the redevelopment of Ancoats especially.

Uncertainty over future rail redevelopment (most recently with HS2) and pre-election 2010 carrots from New Labour over potential "Mayfield Civil Service Quarter" haven’t helped development around here either.

Also the further east you go the closer you are to Manchester's old coal fields; fine for social housing but less appealing for those wanting value and long term investments.

[tellmeastorey]

I wrote this piece recently, from a planning report on Gateway House which contained an interesting paragraph.

Realty set for Gateway nod
By Simon Binns | Office | 10-01-2013 | 16:45 | Print
Realty Estates' proposed redevelopment of its 150,000 sq ft Gateway House office building in Manchester is likely to be approved by the city council next week.

The £35m scheme, which would see Max Apartments operate 182 serviced flats in the 1970s building attached to Piccadilly Station, is recommended for approval by the council's planning committee.

The plans, drawn up by Hodder and Partners, also include the construction of a new three-storey gym and a new eight-storey office building attached to Gateway House.

The proposals have drawn one objection, however, from an unnamed adjacent landowner, understood to be Irish developer Ballymore, which owns a site on Ducie Street and Store Street.

That site was earmarked for the 187m Piccadilly Tower, but the scheme has been on hold since 2008.

At 58 storeys, the Woods Bagot-designed tower would have been the tallest building in Manchester and when plans were first unveiled, it was said to have a development value of £220m.

The planning report says the objector believes "an application which involves both sites would make a significant contribution to this major gateway to Manchester and that a joined up masterplanned approach to the two sites would provide more beneficial outcome to the city".

The objector also argues that "to approve this application in isolation would potentially result in a lost strategic opportunity which would create the opportunity to plan Grade A Manchester City office accommodation".

Realty and Ballymore failed to respond to call for comment.

Simon.Binns@estatesgazette.com

[Farsight]

Thanks Longripple. I see the Mayfield thing. It says it's owned by BRB Residuary, who seem to still own it. But wiki says "The scheme is led by "Mayfield Manchester", a joint venture company between Ringset, part of the Wrather Group, and Panamint; the company owns around 90% of the land around the station as of 2008, but do not own the station itself." This isn't actually the area I was thinking of, but it's close enough to Piccadilly Station to fit the bill. Derelict for decades, because it's an "investment". That sort of thing seems to be a bit more prevalent than I realised.

Thanks, tellmeastory. I saw that on the thread, and thought it a bit odd to object to somebody else's application to buff up an existing pretty-good building. I thought why not just contact them?

[jrb]

If I were Chelmer Developments I would f*** River Street off and buy the Piccadilly Tower site and build either tower instead. Or both.

[Lookin Up]

Originally Posted by Farsight

It never ceases to surprise me that with transport links being so important and all, the area north-ish of Piccadilly Station has remained a wasteland for decades. Does anybody know why?

Classic case of being the wrong side of the tracks, literally. The elevated nature of the tracks and the station itself form a perfect barrier between the city centre proper and this area. A walk down Fairfield St (earphones out / wits about you) will tell you all you need to know about why there are no willing investors here.
Nothing will happen in the foreseeable future either with the HS2 station earmarked. No-one will go near it (apart from land bank speculators) until construction work actually begins (in how many decades?)

[Farsight]

I took a bit of a tour courtesy of google maps and street view. Fairfield Street was particularly grim, but I don't think it's just a wrong-side-of-the tracks thing. It's a dereliction thing too. Though the Travis Street stretch under the tracks doesn't help - it looked like I'd need a baseball bat for comfort. But as you sweep round Sheffield Street things are a bit better, and pretty nice when that turns into Boad Street near the Piccadilly tower site. Lot of opportunity round here. Or should be if transport links to London are as important as people say.

[UK86]

Originally Posted by Farsight

I took a bit of a tour courtesy of google maps and street view. Fairfield Street was particularly grim, but I don't think it's just a wrong-side-of-the tracks thing. It's a dereliction thing too. Though the Travis Street stretch under the tracks doesn't help - it looked like I'd need a baseball bat for comfort. But as you sweep round Sheffield Street things are a bit better, and pretty nice when that turns into Boad Street near the Piccadilly tower site. Lot of opportunity round here. Or should be if transport links to London are as important as people say.

Travis Street isn't nice from what I remember and some of the adjacent streets are particularly dodgy at night. I think I remember seeing prostitutes around there once, the general feeling is unpleasant, especially at night!

[nerd]

Originally Posted by UK86

Travis Street isn't nice from what I remember and some of the adjacent streets are particularly dodgy at night. I think I remember seeing prostitutes around there once, the general feeling is unpleasant, especially at night!

you will see street-girls around there every night; but that is true for most mainline stations.

But if this side of Piccadilly gets redeveloped; the sex-workers here will tend to join their sisters around Mayfield. They need streets that punters cars can cruise in their cars.

[Priscilla QOTD]

Originally Posted by nerd

you will see street-girls around there every night; but that is true for most mainline stations.

But if this side of Piccadilly gets redeveloped; the sex-workers here will tend to join their sisters around Mayfield. They need streets that punters cars can cruise in their cars.

You seem to be very knowledgable on the subject...

[nerd]

Originally Posted by Priscilla QOTD

You seem to be very knowledgable on the subject...

Its where I park my car for work; and regularly get solicited for 'business'.

which I decline.

Good place to park though; as it is near the station, free of charge, covered by CCTV, and reasonably well lit. Moslty thanks to the sex-trade.

Wouldn't advise Mrs Nerd to park there though.

[Nathan Dawz]

Originally Posted by nerd

Its where I park my car for work;

Yeh, yeh, that's what they all say!

[tellmeastorey]

Forget the Whitehall of the North. Maybe we should rebrand it 'The Amsterdam Quarter' and turn it into a tourist attraction.

[Chogmook]

Don't get excited.

I just don't recall ever seeing this video before:

http://www.calderpeel.com/projects/m...cadilly-tower/

(Click 'Video')

Or this image:

[JackoGunnerGoCrazy]

:O <--- My face of hope

[TamaSuperstar]

:'(

[JackoGunnerGoCrazy]

In all seriousness, it would be cool if someone could confirm that that video/ render are in fact old and mean nothing or whether they may well be new and in turn could mean some movement on this project? I hear people on this website are good at this sort of thing...

[VDB]

Originally Posted by JackoGunnerGoCrazy

In all seriousness, it would be cool if someone could confirm that that video/ render are in fact old and mean nothing or whether they may well be new and in turn could mean some movement on this project? I hear people on this website are good at this sort of thing...

Well the render on the left here certainly isn't new; Beetham Tower is still CGI'ed, and then look at the state of the towers in Hulme - as well as the "Manchester 2002" banner on Portland St. All long, long gone.

[JackoGunnerGoCrazy]

Originally Posted by VDB

Well the render on the left here certainly isn't new; Beetham Tower is still CGI'ed, and then look at the state of the towers in Hulme - as well as the "Manchester 2002" banner on Portland St. All long, long gone.

Agreed. But the second render is certainly interesting anyway. Probably just slipped under the radar, but i cant believe i missed them! Complete beauties.

[ferge]

It says published to YouTube in March 2012, so whilst the content of the video may be old stuff from back in the day, the fact it has been posted more recently is a little ray of hope, perhaps?

[VDB]

Originally Posted by ferge

It says published to YouTube in March 2012, so whilst the content of the video may be old stuff from back in the day, the fact it has been posted more recently is a little ray of hope, perhaps?

But it looks as though March 2012 is when Calderpeel set up the channel; so maybe they just thought "we'll dump everything in there". Their videos for Chancery Place and The Boatyard, Worsley are on there - both had been long finished by last year