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GLOUCESTER | Full Summary of Projects

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#1 · (Edited)
OFFICIAL GLOUCESTER REGENERATION

Gloucester is a prosperous and exciting city located near the Welsh border on the banks of the River Severn. It has a long and detailed history dating back to the Roman times and was an important industrial hub for much of this time. Following changes in industry, the city saw a large decline during the last half of the 20th century.

Following large scale investment and promotion of the city, it now boasts impressive architecture, innovative industry and an improving retail scene.

Below is a summary of the latest projects and details of completed work.

UNDER CONSTRUCTION

Gloucester Quays
Gloucester Quays has been a massive £400million investment into Gloucester by the Peel Investment Group. The first phases are completed, being a designer outlet centre, Travelodge Hotel, Sainsburys Supermarket and new college site for GLOSCAT.

The latest phase is a £40million plan to build a 10screen Cineworld cinema above 10 bar/retaurant units in the area between the canal and the outlet centre. Nandos and Pizza Express are already tenents of this area. Restaurants believed to be interested include Carluccios and Wagamamas.


Gloucester Docks
Work is completed on a multi-million pound plan to convert the former antique centre into high end apartments. Another apartment block has been completed with the architecture designed to sympathetically fit in with the local surroundings and historic Gloucester Docks.

Ecclasiastical Insurance and due to imminently start work on their new Headquarters building on the current Southgate Street surface car park. The last news was that the company had committed themselves to site and appointed architects to draw up the plans.

St Oswalds Park Final Phases
Residential phases continue by Charles Church/Persimmon and there are new apartment blocks being constructed alongside the retirement centre and behind the B&Q store.

Kingsway
Many thousands of houses are being build on the western fringe of Gloucester by a consortium of 8 house builders. There will be 3-400 houses plus a new neighbourhood centre, parks, 2 schools and shops once complete. Neighbourhoods 2&3 have recently been launched, and construction of the new school has begun. The retail provision so far includes Tesco Express, Badhams Pharmacy and a pub. A large Asda has been confirmed for the area just off the A38 with work due to start soon.

Railway Triangle
Work has now started to clear the site and lay down services to the railway riangle site. This will become home to a large new Morrisons store and petrol station alongwith light industrial units, small retail stores and restaurants.

PROPOSED

Greyfriars
Estimated at £60million, it occupies the site formerly held by Gloscat on Brunswick Road. The old teaching blocks will be demolished, and a new sustainable neighbourhood built, including new retail, offices and restaurants plus a new public square. The recession has impacted on this development, having been delayed and Edward Ware homes being dropped as preffered developer. Construction is due to start in March/April 2010 following a 1 year public consultation (very favourable as well). The new developer Linden Homes will construct abotu 400 units with £60 million estimated investment in the area.

Bakers Quay
No recent news and the site has been put on the market.

Kings Quarter
The plans here include the demolition of the Bus station and carparks, and to extend the Kings Walk Shopping mall. The contruction of a new flagship department store is proposed. Kings Square would also be totally redeveloped, and the bus station would move to the car park of Land Registry (opposite the train station). Kings Square itself would be filled with new retail stores and the square moved north to sit where the current bus station and taxi ranks are- better linking the station to the city centre. Stanhope Plc are behind the plans and have a succesful legacy at delivering high quality retail driven regeneration- most notably in Exeter. The project will be worth an estimated £80-100million.

OTHER PROJECTS

Contract Chemicals Site, Bristol Road
a masterplan for this former factory site is currently being drawn up, but looks likely to be mixed use including offices, housing and light industry, and is estimated to be worth £30million.

COMPLETED

Gloucester Quays Phases 1-3
The Gloucester Quays Designer Outlet Centre has been completed and opened with great success. There are currently 60 stores let and many more due to be announced shortly. Stores such as Nike, Calvin Klein, The White Company, Gap are all making first appearances in Gloucester and often the county.



Also included in the project was a new Sainsburys Superstore, bringing with it 200 jobs.


A new iconic Bridge finally connecting St Anns way to Hempsted

Finally, a new campus for Gloucestershire opened in Phase1 of the project. Being hailed as a major success and setting the ball rolling for the wider Quays development


Gloucestershire Royal Hospital
Completed a couple of years ago, this redevelopment provided Gloucester with premier health facitilies including new childrens wards, X-ray, orthopaedics, A&E, wards and new parking. The project cost ~£30million.

Ibis Hotel
Due to be build on the Eastern Avenue roundabout behind the Total Petrol Station, this large Ibis hotel brings much needed hotel space to the city.


St Oswolds Park Phases 1&2
On the site which was formerly the Gloucester Cattle Market, this landmark development has seen the biggest B&Q store in the western world, plus a DW Fitness, Mothercare, Argos, SCS, Frankie and Benny's, Subway, Dominoes, Natwest, Homesense and Harvester.

The project is valued at £100million and was a joint venture between Hammerson Developments and Gloucester City Council.

Gloucester Docks
Crest Nicholson have spent £10's millions on regenerating Gloucester Docks and restoring them to their former glory. They have also build two new blocks around Barge Arm, containing shops and restaurants in the bottom.


Gloucester Rugby Club
The club has undergone a large scale expansion project, seeing the second new stand contructed in 3 years. The capacity of the club is being increased to 17000 from 6000. The stand is estimated at £6million.

Gloucester Northern Bypass
Gloucester welcomed the opening of a new £43million bypass, opening up the western waterfront of the city and the Monk Meadow portion of gloucester quays for development. The bypass has significantly improved traffic congestion down Bristol Road.


Here are the projects in relation to the city centre:


As you can see, Gloucester is indeed undergoing a rebirth, so please comment, discuss, add pictures and renders...Gloucester is worth talking about!
 
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#732 ·
Quite a bit of news since the last time I was on here:

The Quays:
Bella Italia are opening where Real China used to be.

The Works have taken a larger unit.

Bench is opening this weekend.

Fatface are opening first week of November.

Carluccios are opening imminently.

Clarks shoes opened in September and Trickers shoes are rumoured to be joining them.

Bakers Quay.
Following a major fire the whole project is 'under review' The original mill building is listed so Rokeby who proposed the project are keeping it on review but are 'hopeful' the project can still go ahead. Plans had been in place for a major project bring more flats, retail and restaurants to the docks. Premier Inn, Costa and Harvester were already signed up.

Kings Quarter
This project looks to have potentially stalled. It has all gone quiet and Stanhope are still apparently looking for tenants. Lots of speculation over if a retail lead scheme is sensible. I feel it is given the lack of decent retail space in the city. Perhaps Gloucester should look to rehome some of the brands lost with Beechwood centre in Cheltenham being taken over by John Lewis. This is a shame as they could have anchored Kings Quarter. Still possibility of Next or an up-sized Debenhams.

Regardless of the above, the Bus station will definitely go ahead. This will be build on what is currently the bus station office and cafe plus the section where Furniture recycling is based. The sooner the better!

Blackfriars
A new £135million plan to reinvent Blackfriars was announced earlier in the year. It will bring new flats and hotels to the river-front and include a new Justice centre, linking new Crown courts and the Police together.




Shire hall will also be refreshed and updated to allow for space for the city and county councils to share premises.

Images from Gloucester Citizen.

As part of this vision, the former Gloucester Prison has been purchased by City and County to be regenerated into potential residential or leisure/hotel uses.
 
#735 ·
I swear that Gloucester seems to be the most incompetent city in the whole of the South West for redevelopment projects... All these grand talks of this Kings Square and Greyfriars/ Blackfriars developments.

But no, once again, the City Council seem utterly obsessed with the redevelopment of "The Beautiful Docks and Quays", as Points West have put it, as opposed to sorting out the historic city centre, blighted by all manner of concrete carbuncles. They don't even seem to be addressing the Eastgate centre, which is just as much a blight as Kings Square in my opinion!
 
#737 ·
tk maxx

National retailer TK Maxx are 'about to be signed' to take over the former Marks and Spencer store in Gloucester.

The Northgate Street unit has been home to Pure Bargains since last February but now the discount store is moving out.

Developers Northgate No.1 Securities LLP bought the site and has applied for planning permission to refurbish the store, and install a gym and offices on its first and second floors.

According to the planning documents, the developers are "about to sign" TK Maxx to occupy the ground floor of the unit and part of the first floor
 
#749 ·
Can't say I like the look of that proposal personally. It seems to be overly masking the brickwork facades of the existing buildings with new builds rather than showcasing the existing buildings. I in particularly don't like the look of that new build to the RHS which I presume is copper clad.
 
#750 ·
I hear what you're saying Cyril but in this instance I have faith in developers and architects. Architects gillespie yunnie have produced the scheme presumably on quality submission rather than the cheapest fee which usually happens in this neck of the woods.

I think the architects have done quite a bit down your way - Plymouth Dockyards etc.
Here's hoping it urns out ok anyway
 
#752 ·
I imagine you are probably referring to Royal William Yard in Plymouth, if so that was very much a scheme sympathetic to the existing buildings. No new builds were constructed just a bit of refurbishment of the existing buildings and improvement to the public realm.

I just think with areas like this the attraction of what makes that area pleasent is the distinctiveness of the old building stock of the period warehouses alongside the dock. Blocking the facades of the old buildings just makes it feel like it could be anywhere in the UK.

As for the city centre, around the Cathedral and the quay are naturally going to be more attractive to developers as those are recgonised as the pleasent areas of the city. Sure concentrating on those two areas not going to do anything to improve the city centre itself but the city centre needs a big masterplan or something from the Council to interest such developers.
 
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