The M'cr Construction Timeline

[VoldemortBlack]

Okay, I know I said I'd do it on Wednesday but I'm busy for the rest of the week.

Here's a look at April, which seems pretty exciting and also sees Exchange Sq change forever, read why below!

APRIL 2012

Projects with exact dates

April 6th the Bridge at Spinningfields will open to the public.
April 9th til April 14th Manchester Fashion Week will take place at the Avenue North in Spinningfields
10th April BBC Breakfast will begin broadcasting from MediaCityUK

Other projects, without exact dates

- At the Chill Factore, the new "Play Factore" will open. It'll feature a new 50m zip wire as well as the UKs longest slide and a climbing frame.

- (Advertised as Spring), the planning application for Victoria is due to be submitted.

- Apparently, the first phase of Angel Square (bar Number 1) will start/planning details released.

- The demolition of Elizabeth House at St Peter's Square will complete. To an extent, this stage has already been reached. Start of construction on 1 St Peter's Sq is now imminent.

- At the Sharp Project, "the Campus" will open and become the final stage of the Sharp Project.

- Tower 12s refurb was originally due to be complete by now, but this looks unlikely.

- The £1m Refurbishment of the Ancient Worlds Gallery at the Manchester Museum will begin.

- FCUK will be opening a store in Manchester

- Trof will open on Whitworth St West

- Frurt will open on Hardman St

- Brewdog is due to open on Peter St, beginning revival of this street.

- At Exchange Square, the wheel is set to disappear to make way for some sort of Olympic Event and the 2CC tramway. No details on whether or whereabouts the wheel be replaced elsewhere in the city.

- (Advertised as Spring) the Bury Line Met refurb is due for completion.

- A planning decision is expected at First St and the construction of the new Melia Spanish hotel is due to start there.

- Lego City Forest Pursuit is due to open at Legoland (think this has now opened already?)

- 53N Investors are due to have refurbished a Grade 2 listed building on King St, providing 31,000sqft of office space.

- Lastly, due this month is a decision as to whether or not City Wharf at New Bailey near Spinningfields will be demolished. They're plans for a new 12 storey office block here.




Stick around for the outlook on the rest of the year

[VoldemortBlack]

So we've seen April, now lets take a quick look at what 2012 will bring post-April;

May 2012

- Work due to start on Piccadilly Gateway reclad scheme.
- Dr Martens due to open on Market St
- Indigo Hotel and Marco Pierre White restaurant starts construction in Victoria.
- Le Relais Entercote restaurant will open on King St. First branch of their restaurant outside of New York and London, will bring a new French style of dining to the city.
- Work will start on Rochdale interchange **Spring 2012
- Blackdog Ballroom will open on New Wakefield St
- Construction of No.1 St Peter's Square will begin




June 2012

4th June - Great Manchester Cycle. Route will include Mancunian Way etc, new annual event.
June 16th, 17th and 18th - Dalai Lama will visit Manchester. First visit of his UK tour.

- Stone Roses concerts, Heaton Park
- Decision will be made on whether or not platforms 3&4 at Salford Central will be reused as part of Liverpool-Manchester electrification
- Metrolink originally due to open to Droylsden.
- The Wharf at Castlefield will open.



July 2012

July 6th - National football museum at Urbis will open

- Government will start licensing local TV stations (Manchester will have one)
- Greengate plaza and new bridge complete
- Etihad Call Centre at Airport opens - 160 jobs.
- Final decision on 3/5s of funding for Northern Hub
- Metrolink originally due to open to Rochdale.



August 2012

- We'll hear about the probability of us getting a local TV station.
- Airport Line Metrolink; bridge will go in at Jackson's Boat.
- Islington tower block reclad complete, Salford
- Co-op Headquarters at 1 Angel Square complete. Rest of phases expected soon.
- Work due to start on Belle Vue Aces Speedway.
- Cypress Place, Green Quarter. Final fit out of 215 apartments here.
- Marks and Spencer refurbisment. They'll be creating their "flagship" store here.
- All Star Lanes due to open in Great Northern.



September 2012

- 17 New Wakefield St open to students
- Motel One Hotel at Piccadilly will commence (depending on planning decision)
- MMU Business School and Student Hub complete.
- MMU Arts Building complete.
- New Bailey/Spinningfields - planning permission may be granted..
- Refurb of Ancient Worlds gallery at Manchester Museum complete.



October 2012

- First employees to begin moving into Co-op HQ
- Enabling works at First St will begin.
- Peel will release Port Salford documents
- General Roadworks and new public spaces on Chapel St due to open



November 2012

- Stalybridge station remodelling complete.
- Tracks will start going down on the Airport line.
- Fabrica office and hotel development, Ancoats complete. 21,000sqft of office space and 150 bed Acor hotel.
- Piccadilly Station new mezannine level will open with 3 new restaurants and a bar.



December 2012

- Tesco Superstore at Old Trafford will open
- New December transport timetable will see extra hourly service from Victoria to Stalybridge and beyond to Wigan & S'port, and a new evening service from Victoria to Leeds.
- All 4 new 11 car pendolinos will start service
- WCML Franchise relet.
- Victoria - roof starts to come down ready for the new one
- The Printworks will see the creation of a new mezannine level with escalators and external & internal refurbishment. Complete.

[VoldemortBlack]

The Wheel in Exchange Square is due to be closed on Sunday, April 15th, at 6pm..

MEN

Manchester Wheel set to be axed in April

The iconic Manchester Wheel is to be dismantled and removed from the city centre. The giant tourist attraction, measuring 190ft, will be closed in April to make way for Olympic events, its operators said.

The observation wheel first appeared in Exchange Square at Christmas in 2004, and takes between 300,000 and 500,000 rides each year. It will be closed on Sunday, April 15 at 6pm. John Lowery, operations manager for Great City Attractions who manage the wheel, said: "Our Manchester attraction has been a big success, but unfortunately Manchester council have informed us they require the area for part of their Olympic events.

"The Wheel will only be here until the end of Easter to give the last remaining people a final opportunity to ride above Manchester’s skyline.” Great City Attractions are now looking at other possible homes for the wheel in Manchester, but have so far been unsuccessful.

The Manchester Wheel was installed temporarily at Christmas 2004 and removed. It appeared again in 2006 and became a permanent fixture in May 2007. Mr Lowery added: “Great City Attractions want to make a special thank you to Manchester Council who gave the Wheel their full support making it the success that it has been.”

http://menmedia.co.uk/manchestereven...-axed-in-april

[Seasonedbest]

FCUK will be opening a store in Manchester?

[VoldemortBlack]

I'm sure I saw it somewhere, perhaps flange could enlighten us..?

[flange]

They are launching a homewares collection, the existing Manchester store on Exchange Street has been selected as one of the stores it will be launched in.

http://www.frenchconnection.com/cate...smigrated=true

http://www.frenchconnection.com/cont...es/uk-home.htm

[VoldemortBlack]

May is quickly approaching, but I'm afraid to inform you that things have gone a wee bit stagnant and hardly anything new has been put on the wall since last month's update. This may be because I pretty much have every project going on in Manchester already and so there's no need for more, but there could be other reasons..

We'll remain optimistic, but the current situation is this; demand for offices and residential space in the CC is higher now than it was in the boom, but there's no confidence in the system to deliver the goods.

I'll be updating this next week.

[Meadows]

Damn, people are really risk-adverse at the moment...

It's a shame really because, as you said, the fundamentals are pretty strong in Manchester: skilled workforce, generally good economy, decent and improving infrastructure.

It seems simplistic but we need a few scrapers! Piccadilly Tower seems like a good idea really, Manchester needs more office capacity in the center. I read that the reason that the UK (and by proxy Manchester's) economy is so stagnant is that companies are building up cash reserves for a rainy day, and are really unwilling to take risks. I suppose it's a bit of a "fool me once" kind of thing, something that isn't happening in the USA where people are always willing to tell you "yes".

Similar things are happening to consumers, a lot of disposable income is being filtered into paying off loans/mortgages which were taken in the height of the crisis, so you're seeing deflated consumer, and corporate demand which will probably ease up when people feel more ontologically safe with the economy - perhaps in 2013-14. Hopefully Osbourne's next budget will make use of our great bond rate and he can borrow a bit to pump into the economy, which would really help Manchester specifically.

Once one comes a lot more people will start to feel confident, and the confidence that something like a Picc. tower would bring, even psychologically, would be great for Manchester.

Just some rambling thoughts, sorry!

Oh, and just one more thing - watch the importance of Manchester Airport skyrocket in the next 5-10 years. It could really be the case that London's loss is Manchester's gain in this regard.

[VoldemortBlack]

You're exactly right Meadows. Both my parents work in finance and they say that companies really are stocking up for a rainy day, obviously not knowing that (should a double dip happen) it's actually their fault for not spending!

The private sector is being reluctant and not building (presumably because, even though the demand is there, there's still this threat of a double-dip and lots of companies don't know whether to build a Piccadilly Tower or not cause what if they do and we go back into recession?)

Therefore, we need to look at the public sector. Government really needs to look at the figures for Manchester and pump some money into it. If they build lots of office and residential space, it'll create work in construction, all the space will fill up and (more importantly) confidence in Manchester at least will be up; meaning more companies will build here.

At the moment it really is a vicious circle. People aren't spending because of fear of a double dip, which in turn means the economy doesn't get going, which in turn actually ends up creating a double dip.

Come on Cameron, get building!


EDIT; another thing I'm worried about is that Manchester isn't particulary an important hub for business, not like London. The only reason companies would consider moving to Manchester would be that it's cheaper than London. If they can't find the offices here because there's no room at the Inn, they can just move elsewhere like Liverpool or Leeds. Birmingham will absorb a lot of interest with its development at Snowhill as well..

[Meadows]

I don't know that I agree with the idea that something shouldn't be built because of the threat of a double-dip.

1) If there is a recession, it would be very minor, with a growth of -0.1% to -0.3%, something that would be partial to an upwards revision later down the line - although even this coming recession seems unlikely

2) This recession, or stagnation, is ultimately "fake" for the UK. It's caused by a lack of demand from our Eurozone partners (obviously) and weak confidence - partly caused by an incredibly negative media (it pays more to say everything is horrible than everything is fine!).

As to other points, I don't think that public sec. investment, specifically in Manchester, would be particularly productive, and it seems hugely unlikely.

[VoldemortBlack]

You touched upon a good point there - media.

All you ever hear the BBC spouting out is bad news about the recession. It's like switching on the news and seeing LNG on your screen. "It's the end of the world". Even last week when unemployment figures had decreased the BBC didn't dwell on it too much and even the presenters looked upset to be reporting such good news.

How can we expect things to continue when we have the Book of Revelation screened out to homes across the UK every day?

[scientist12]

Originally Posted by VoldemortBlack

EDIT; another thing I'm worried about is that Manchester isn't particulary an important hub for business, not like London. The only reason companies would consider moving to Manchester would be that it's cheaper than London. If they can't find the offices here because there's no room at the Inn, they can just move elsewhere like Liverpool or Leeds. Birmingham will absorb a lot of interest with its development at Snowhill as well..

Surely there is plenty of "room at the inn". You can't walk far without seeing to let signs on offices. There's loads going at Salford Quays for example. I don't think Birley Fields on Princess Parkway has ever been used and has been lieing idle for a few years now.

[flange]

Originally Posted by scientist12

Surely there is plenty of "room at the inn". You can't walk far without seeing to let signs on offices. There's loads going at Salford Quays for example. I don't think Birley Fields on Princess Parkway has ever been used and has been lieing idle for a few years now.

Birley Fields is the location for the planned new MMU campus in Hulme.

Manchester Metropolitan University Hulme Campus | Birley Fields | Hulme | App

[VoldemortBlack]

Originally Posted by scientist12

Surely there is plenty of "room at the inn". You can't walk far without seeing to let signs on offices. There's loads going at Salford Quays for example. I don't think Birley Fields on Princess Parkway has ever been used and has been lieing idle for a few years now.

I often think this too. Makes you wonder where this 96% figure is coming from?

[VoldemortBlack]

Hope you all had a good month. Here's the highlight of April!

The Manchester Wheel, which was closed on Sunday April 16th as timetabled. Served Manchester for 4 years.



Hat's off to it!


And here's the timetable for May;

May 2012

Exact Dates;
- Tuesday 1st May; Le Relais Entrecote opens. First restaurant outside of London, Paris and New York.
- Friday 4th May; Brewdog will open on Peter St
- Saturday, 5th May; "Purity"; 'a unique restaurant experience, exclusive bar & lounge and late night club will open on Peter St
-Sunday 6th to Monday 7th May; "SpinFest". New annual Spinningfields free music festival
- Thursday, 10th May; Blackdog Ballroom due to open on New Wakefield St

No exact date
- Work is set to start on the new Rochdale Transport Interchange* (Spring 2012)
- Work was initially set to start on Hotel Indigo and the Marco Pierre White restaurant but they recently said construction would instead be starting in 2013.
- From today (30th April) and throughout May, driver training will be taking place on the Oldham Metrolink line. Should open soon!


Good month for Peter St, not so good overall. Not much happening guys!

[VoldemortBlack]

Few more to add;

- Construction of Number 1 St Peter's Square will begin

- Dr Martens due to open on Market St

- Work will start on Piccadilly Gateway Reclad scheme.

[AJD1984]

Hi Voldemort (I's call you Voldy but I know JK Rowling isn't a fan of her Dark wizard being called that). Anyway thought I'd post here so you can update. Work has now begun (earlier than expected i think) on fitting out the Greenquarter. The elevator has started to be erected on the side with various materials in between the buildings. Also work was being done on the outside of the Triangle (URBIS side), prep work I assume.

Andrew

[VoldemortBlack]

Excellent, thankyou AJD!

It sounds as though you're in the "industry", would you be able to say whether or not the Printworks work has begun yet?

[AJD1984]

Sorry to disappoint Voldemort. Im afraid not. Mate used to work for Marketing Manchester so got a couple of inside info about things not mentioned on here. One surprising one about the Captain America shoot.

[VoldemortBlack]

Oh, my bad.

Something about Captain America? Oh..?