SkyscraperCity Forum banner

Kings Dock Mill - Phase 2 | Hurst Street | 204 Apartments | 10-13 Storeys | Stalled

222K views 611 replies 103 participants last post by  Liverpool1207 
#1 · (Edited)
I've given this its own thread, rather than placing it in the Baltic Triangle thread, as it seems like, if it comes to pass, it'll be quite a large development.

Anyway, an application has gone in for the re-development of the current YHA youth hostel site, bounded by Hurst Street, Tabley Street, Sparking Street, and Wapping. For those uncertain of the site in question, it's the silver-roofed building in the centre of this image - http://www.bing.com/maps/?v=2&cp=53.3978840988423~-2.9858275131977337&lvl=19&sty=h

The application reads -

Full application for the redevelopment of land at Hurst Street/ Sparling Street/ Tabley Street/Wapping to provide a mixed use development comprising 180 No. bedroom hotel, 100 No. apartments, 220 bed YHA building, and retail space (585 sq m), plus associated access and parking arrangements, landscaping and amenity space, together with outline application for 95 No. bedroom care home.
http://northgate.liverpool.gov.uk/P...kins/Liverpool_M3/Menus/PL.xml&DAURI=PLANNING

Although there is a fair amount of open space around the existing youth hostel, clearly to fit all of the above on that site is going to require a building several storeys taller than the existing three storey youth hostel. Together with the new Hampton by Hilton on the site diagonally opposite, this should make a valuable contribution to the regeneration of the Baltic Triangle.
 
See less See more
#5 ·
Although we'll have to wait for the related documents to be added to the planning application on the Planning Explorer, I'm almost certain, given what is planned for the site, that the current youth hostel will have to make way. As for the age of the Youth Hostel, I think it's probably no more than 10-12 years old, so it's really not that old. However it's nothing remarkable architecturally speaking, it represents under-development of the land in question, and the new development will enable the YHA to increase the number of beds they have available from the current 138, up to 220, so although it always feels a bit wasteful to demolish relatively new buildings, it will be for the greater good.
 
#7 ·
I've given this its own thread, rather than placing it in the Baltic Triangle thread, as it seems like, if it comes to pass, it'll be quite a large development.

Anyway, an application has gone in for the re-development of the current YHA youth hostel site, bounded by Hurst Street, Tabley Street, Sparking Street, and Wapping. For those uncertain of the site in question, it's the silver-roofed building in the centre of this image - http://www.bing.com/maps/?v=2&cp=53.3978840988423~-2.9858275131977337&lvl=19&sty=h

The application reads -
Quote:
Full application for the redevelopment of land at Hurst Street/ Sparling Street/ Tabley Street/Wapping to provide a mixed use development comprising 180 No. bedroom hotel, 100 No. apartments, 220 bed YHA building, and retail space (585 sq m), plus associated access and parking arrangements, landscaping and amenity space, together with outline application for 95 No. bedroom care home.

http://northgate.liverpool.gov.uk/P...kins/Liverpool_M3/Menus/PL.xml&DAURI=PLANNING

Although there is a fair amount of open space around the existing youth hostel, clearly to fit all of the above on that site is going to require a building several storeys taller than the existing three storey youth hostel. Together with the new Hampton by Hilton on the site diagonally opposite, this should make a valuable contribution to the regeneration of the Baltic Triangle.
Good find.

It is hard to see how all this can be accommodated on the site bounded by those streets, even if it is built to the same height as the Hampton. The Porter Bros (Hampton) development was originally specified as 188 apartments, 113-room hotel, 128-space car park and 3000 sq ft of commercial space. This seems bigger, while the site is much smaller.

So perhaps 'at' does not mean 'bounded by', and we might see something either crossing Hurst St or, even better, reaching along Wapping into the dead verge to the south. As Chris says, the Planning Explorer will reveal all, in its own good time.
 
#8 · (Edited)
Ah but Dreamer, this isn't the good news we'd like to think it is.

Large parts of this area is plagued by these distinctly anti-urban, off-street buildings moated by "landscaping" and endless car-lots. Downtown Liverpool must have more of its space suffocated under surface-parking and it's sop ,landscaping, than any other comparable city. It's a blight, an unwelcome hang-over of weak planners lacking any long-term understanding of what cities are, and should be.

This development. as all the other fail-plots, should engage with the street, to make it's contribution to the sort of integrated streetscape cities are about. It doesn't need its own car-park. It doesn't need landscaping. It doesn't need gateing.

Unfortunately, this proposal continues this lack of consideration given to being part of an actual city-centre. Again, please make your feelings known to the relevant bodies.
 
#9 ·
Ah, but gents this isn't good.

At first I thought this was a welcome rethink of the kind of gratuitous "cake-and-eat-it" requests by developers which lead to the dismantling of large bits of the vital urban fabric of central Liverpool, bit no.

Large parts of this area is plagued by these distinctly anti-urban, off-street buildings moated by "landscaping" and endless car-lots. Downtown Liverpool must have more of its space suffocated under surface-parking and it's sop ,landscaping, than any other comparable city. It's a blight, an unwelcome hang-over of weak planners lacking any long-term understanding of what cities are, and should be.

This proposal asks for more of the same. Again, please make your feelings known to the relevant bodies.
VT, seen your post on that Hanover st building. Lathom is more up on this than me but the grounds for refusal are ,contravening planning guidelines,affecting the setting of listed buildings. Unfortunately that proposed building doesn't seem to be in breach of either, they can't refuse just because it's poor quality design, i think anyway. Re: the Baltic Triangle, i'm assuming the parking provision will be underground, as with the Hampton and one ot the apartments on Cornhill. There's a dire shortage of parking spaces in that area for local residents, i've got a niece and sister living there and they get issued tickets on a weeky basis, outside their own buildings :bash . Anyway good to see you posting again.
 
#12 ·
Looking at the application, it appear that the car parking will either be in a courtyard or behind the development. Ideally we’d have underground car parking, with retail at ground floor and residential above…However, underground car parking costs a hell of a lot to build. I’d rather have the ground floor given over to retail than to car parking and would be willing to sacrifice some density to have a parking courtyard/area at the back of the residential development.

It is all well and good trying to compel people to use public transport by not allowing car parking within a project, but that is one of the main reasons that many city centre apartment schemes have not been successful at bringing in residents and are now serviced apartments. Not size. Not quality. Parking.

In addition, there is an increasing trend to fear on street parking. It depresses me but I do know of a surprising number of people (mostly from over the water) who, if they cannot be guaranteed off street parking would rather drive their car to Hooton and get the train in. As if parking on a street here will result in their car getting nicked. Equally, I know of quite a few people who dismiss out of hand any residential development unless it is gated. Strangely enough, they are all Tory voters. :)

I will wait to see what the designs are but am hopeful it will be significantly better than what is there now.
 
#18 ·
I agree with most of that, people want parking as most people have cars, so its acceptable and right I think to having parking for all residents. Ideally this should be underground or part underground if and where possible. Any courtyards should be used as green areas. I dont think retail on the ground floor would work in the area due to such low foot fall, and therefore the inability for any business to generate enough business. On the gated issue, safety is a very important issue for people, and likewise no-one wants drunks or druggies in their communal areas, so I think its understandable people want this type of security.
 
#13 ·
Do we know exactly where the building will be situated ie. will it be on the existing footprint or will it encroach on the existing small grassed area in front and be more flush to the roadside?
 
#14 ·
^^

That's the big question. The sheer amount of uses listed in the application would suggest that as much use be made of the available land as possible (and even if this was the case, they would still likely require a building that would probably be the tallest in the immediate area). So it would seem to be logical that it would meet the pavement on all sides.

However, the inclusion of landscaping, as highlighted by VT clouds the issue, indicating some of the site won't be built on. Now this could just mean narrow strips of grass around some or all of the edges. On the other hand, it could mean there will be a significant (relative to the size of the site) area of greenery. If so, this would mean the building would have to be even taller to fit all the listed uses in.

Unfortuantely, at least until the Planning Explorer is updated, it all just comes down to conjecture. However I think it's probably safe to say that the new development will expand beyond the footprint of the existing Youth Hostel, regardless of whether it ultimately covers the entire site.

With regard to the height though, One thing to note is that the former L1 project had planning permission for a 14 storey building, so a precedent has been set in the immediate area for a building of at least that height.
 
#15 ·
^^


With regard to the height though, One thing to note is that the former L1 project had planning permission for a 14 storey building, so a precedent has been set in the immediate area for a building of at least that height.
Unless of course, they have adopted planning guidance since that scheme was approved.

Remember with the MSCP site on Duke St, a fairly sizeable apartment building was approved some years ago. More recent planning guidance has set a lower imit on buildings on Duke St now so any new proposals will not be able to reach the same height. This happened recently with the replacement MSCP proposal, which was knocked back for being too tall, as well as being deemed an inappropriate use.
 
#17 ·
The Baltic planning Framework says the following

The Wapping/Liver Street/Hurst Street site, along with the Parliament Street/Chaloner Street and St. James Place sites are identified as acceptable locations for high-rise buildings.

High rise is defined as 15 stories or over in the guidance.

Other sites are acceptable for 1 - 10 storeys.



Now, that could mean a 10 storey limit on this site, but I think they may be able to go slightly higher, bearing in mind the Wapping/Strand frontage.
 
#22 ·
Another hotel?! With any luck the Formula 1 /Ibis hotel could relocate here and free up that corner...which added to the stalled Baltic Triangle plot could make for some great redevelopment potential. Doesnt seem to be much movement on the other stalled hotel site - the Quarter (forgot which brand it was supposed to be?) a bit further down the road opposite the casino.
 
#23 ·
Another hotel?!
I see your point - virtually every new scheme lately seems to either be a hotel, or else have at least one attached. However several previous schemes with hotels seem to be pretty lifeless - 2x Clarion at Chieftain, and the Ramada at Vermont to name two - so I suppose it's a good thing to have more being proposed, so we maintain a steady increase in hotel provision, even though inevitably not all of them will come to pass.

It doesn't look like we'll see the plans for this one before next week now, but I remain eager to see exactly how they plan to cram everything listed in the application onto that site.
 
#24 ·
More info now available.
http://northgate.liverpool.gov.uk/D...erview.aspx?type=MVMPRD_DC_PLANAPP&key=749281

Interesting quote here.

"The purpose of the work was to carry out a desk study to establish ground conditions to
provide contamination risk information for Phase 2 and 3 of the proposed demolition of an existing youth hostel and warehouse building and development of a 13 storey youth hostel building, car park, residential apartments, retail units and an 8 storey hotel building with associated infrastructure and landscaping."
 
#25 · (Edited)
From the Planning Documents -



The new development seems to be part of a larger regeneration scheme that started with the Hampton by Hilton/Apartments development. Given the developer of that has managed to get the scheme approved, built, and operating in the midst of a severe economic downturn, I'm confident that the next two phases should come to pass as well.
 
#55 ·
Lets be clear here that the plan and renders seem to represent 2 different designs. The plan isn't great, the building on the strand doesnt have the straight facade that the render does, and in the render the block towards the YHA and car park is bigger with more wings.

The render is very passable, the strand block works quite well on the site with that mirrored facade and sharp corner. With regards to the grass moat that we have been warned about, I don't see it here the buildings all seem to follow the streets very well (in the render, but not in the plan)
 
#27 · (Edited)
Phase 3 perpetuates the broken building-line of Wapping by being by being bordered by trees and shrubs. For what justifiable reason? It also adds yet another surface car-park in an area already teeming with them.

Could not the end of the Wapping block not have been concaved in sympathy with the circular residential block opposite to form an attractive streetscape up to Hurst St., or must everything here be the product of bordered, and stand-alone?

An improvement, obviously, but far from good enough.
 
#30 ·
Although I've always been a bit undecided on the Hampton by Hilton development, I think on first impressions Phases 2 & 3 are fine. The height and massing are good, and they will also obviously work well with the Hilton, but are different enough as not to feel samey. In addition, both represent much better use of the available land than their current uses, and although a direct addressing of the Wapping frontage would have been better, as it is, the front elevation does to a certain extent at least, address Wapping, unlike the existing youth hostel which doesn't address it at all.

Interestingly, it seems there have been some changes at some stage, as there are some discrepancies between the location plan I posted further up, and the renders posted by Doug, most notably the 13 storey youth hostel element being moved from the back corner to over-looking the rear of the hotel. Presumably the renders are the correct impression of what is planned though.

As for the car park area behind the hotel, I think that render is deceiving. Firstly, the left-hand part of that area is not a car park, but is actually Hurst Street, which bi-sects the two sites. Of the remaining area, as far as I can see, most of it is not a car park but is actually some kind of lay-by/drop-off area for the hotel, with there actually only being a handful of car parking spaces, probably for disabled use. As such, while a design that saw the hotel sail over the lay-by/drop-off area (like the Hilton at Liverpool ONE) might have made better use of the land, I'm not sure it's strictly fair to call it a surface car park in the conventional sense.
 
#31 ·
Also, as regards the block (almost) joining the street at Wapping, there's a disparity of between the planning document and what's pictured in the renders.

The drawings say straight lines, the plans indicate a stepped face. I'd say stepped isn't what you'd want for an already recessed building line proposal for Wapping.
 
#32 ·
these blocks are another example of the anti-architecture that we have here due to lower returns per sq ft. The hampton is the same. Other examples include the spectrum building on duke st and the mount pleasant building containing tesco. No detail. A cheap pallete and poor choice of materials, coupled with zero design features. Its the opposite in terms of design to the cornwallis development that was flattened by the crane.

Saying that the scale is better and the wapping frontage might just save it with sufficient glazing, as long as there is no green.
 
#42 ·
these blocks are another example of the anti-architecture that we have here due to lower returns per sq ft. The hampton is the same. Other examples include the spectrum building on duke st and the mount pleasant building containing tesco. No detail. A cheap pallete and poor choice of materials, coupled with zero design features.
I feel the same way about this.

I think some of the architects are out of their depth and don't have much of a clue what to do apart from relentless red brick.

It really is a wasted opportunity for this part of town.
 
Top