Motel One | London Road | 42m | 14 fl | Demo

[marni1971]

Originally Posted by dhulkamaniac

This building means so much to many people

So did Jillys...

[EverythingButABeach]

Originally Posted by Rational Plan

The buildings that bookend Monroe's are finely detailed and if were in a posh street could be brushed up so that every brick and cornice gleamed.

The two smaller buildings to the left, however, are no great loss. If they were redeveloped that would be fine, but as they are on a smaller plot, it would be for a much smaller scheme.

I couldn't agree more.
I cannot comprehend why people think that turning Manchester into Broad Street Birmingham is a good idea. Shit one star hotels have no place slap bang in the city centre. Developers are trying their hand in a race to the bottom with progressively cheaper buildings - see the premier inn monster. If the council doesn't refuse planning then there will be little incentive for future developers to spend more than the absolute minimum on new buildings. It's a 1960s and 1970s Birmingham moment for Manchester. If this goes through planning then we're totally fucked.

[highriser]

Oh FFS , these buildings are a complete shit hole

Twisted Wheel closed 25 years ago , i was talkng to some one who works in Outpost tonight and they have just had NW Tonight in ( on tomorrow) complaining and saying we've got a petition going to stop this ive worked here for 10 whole years , felt like saying " walk over the road mate and look at the place " its a fucking mess .

Bulldoze it now ,, apparently it all closes on 30 Dec for demolistion ,,, GOOD

[Cherguevara]

Originally Posted by kids

Fair enough, believe me I hear the concerns over the loss of Legends learning about it, and can see it's legitimate so I'll just take you up on the architectural qualities. First of all I don't think it can be argued that these old buildings are up to much architecturally, they look really low quality and slummy to me. The only value I can see is that there are a lot of them together, that there is a bit of a streetscape going on, it's just unfortunate that they are where they are and as such are like broken teeth to the continuity of the much wider streetscape.

On the proposal I do think you're (all) being pretty unfair, it's not remarkable but if you ignore the massive blank wall in the middle it's actually a fairly neat piece of design - it does a good job of integrating the high density architecture of Piccadilly Place with the Fire Station and conservation area beyond, as I've said making the streetscape look more complete and established. Imagine this view below with that smart facade casting sharp urban lines over the street, it would be more impressive, befitting of Whitworth Street.

Fine, speaking architecturally, I like variation of styles and character. What I dislike is preservation that only keeps the gems and throws everything else away to be replaced by bland non-design. So these buildings aren't stunning; nor are most of the mills around town, or the chimneys, or the workers cottages and weavers houses. But they are very Mancunian and I like that.

Now I'm not saying we have to preserve everything old because it is old, but I'd say as a general preference that any building replacing another should add something to the city rather than taking something away. These designs aren't good enough for me to say it's worth losing the existing character. The fact that you have to completely ignore it's overwhelming feature (the blank wall) to begin to like it speaks volumes. I see what you mean about the massing, but it's still a very bland monolithic structure.

To be honest though my main concern is more to do with the less smart/professional aspects of the city's cultural life being driven out of the centre, and how boring this will leave Manchester.

[Pennypacker]

Originally Posted by highriser

Oh FFS , these buildings are a complete shit hole

Either you're blind, or I'm looking at different buildings to you.

All they need is a good clean and some care. They look a lot better than that plastic box which will replace them.

[Lookin Up]

Originally Posted by Rational Plan

The buildings that bookend Monroe's are finely detailed and if were in a posh street could be brushed up so that every brick and cornice gleamed.

The two smaller buildings to the left, however, are no great loss. If they were redeveloped that would be fine, but as they are on a smaller plot, it would be for a much smaller scheme.

I fully agree with this. You need to be able to see through the grime and lack of tlc to see the full beauty and potential of these 'bookend' buildings.

TBH, when I first saw the sketches of this hotel, until I got myself orientated, I thought they were for the Aytoun St Former Labour Exchange site. In that case, I thought ''Good''

The point being that there are so many eyesore sites around the core city centre that a hotel scheme might rescue and breathe new life into.
The site currently proposed already has a useful economic and social life and that risks being lost to the city for something that will look worse than what already exists. In short - it doesn't improve the site, it will make it worse.

For every one of these hotel projects that gets through, it's one less possibility to fill a surface car park or smashed up wreck with something more viable. There is not an endless demand for hotel rooms and the current boom will end like all other booms.

MCC need to think strategically here: how can it manage what's left of the hotel boom to maximise the physical benefits to the city?

The prospects for getting problem sites filled diminish every time a new hotel app goes in on an inoffensive site like this.

[Lookin Up]

Originally Posted by The Sloth

I'm sure a German city wouldn't mind an Engerlish firm bulldozing their history for a cheap-ass hotel.

[VoldemortBlack]

I definitely see what people are saying here.

They're so many surface car parks or general 60s eyesores in the city centre that we simply can't afford to be demolishing and replacing perfectly good buildings. Just behind this site, in fact, you have a NCP SCP opposite Canal St (the one which has the horrible sign saying "Welcome to Manchester" which you can see from the tram leaving Piccadilly) why not build on that? Or the Labour Exchange, etc.

[Seasonedbest]

Because as a developer, you can’t just go around stealing sites that have already been acquired by others. If the buildings have not sufficiently come to good use in the past 20 years when the boom happened, i.e scrubbed up, then when are they going to be developed, and more importantly into what? They sit outside a train station, what do you expect?

[neil081273]

I love the grittiness of the current buildings. Very NQ. I have patronised Legends on many occasions and it is a huge labyrinthine seedy hole... It's fantastic and it would be difficult to replicate elsewhere.

[Pennypacker]

Originally Posted by Seasonedbest

Because as a developer, you can’t just go around stealing sites that have already been acquired by others. If the buildings have not sufficiently come to good use in the past 20 years when the boom happened, i.e scrubbed up, then when are they going to be developed, and more importantly into what? They sit outside a train station, what do you expect?

This is why the council needs to get involved more. Some sort of incentive based deal should be worked out for sites like this.

[highriser]

Originally Posted by Pennypacker

Either you're blind, or I'm looking at different buildings to you.

All they need is a good clean and some care. They look a lot better than that plastic box which will replace them.

No im not blind mate , i just crossed the road at looked at them , apart from the facade of the Hotel International ( which is'nt great ) the building's that are for the chop are a fucking mess

[Seasonedbest]

Originally Posted by Pennypacker

This is why the council needs to get involved more. Some sort of incentive based deal should be worked out for sites like this.

You’re right. In an ideal world you’d think that things would have been high on the councils agenda when the station was redeveloped or at least when 2,3,4 Picc Place were built. Around a station the most important thing is redevelopment or preservation. Neither has been done.

[Architecty]

I'm not particularly enamored with the proposal, but I think it would be good for the area.
I like the character of the existing buildings, and it would be a shame to see them go, but such is the way of things.

Not in the Whitworth St conservation area, and not listed.
http://www.manchester.gov.uk/downloa...ation_area_map

Which pretty much means that if you own them, you can do what you want with them, which in my opinion, is correct. Where was the clamor for preservation prior to the application?

[kids]

Might avoid the man con article now. The comments about "losing our history" "think of the cavern!!" are gonna make my head explode. What I want to know where these incredible history buffs were when those early 19th c buildings on Greengate that preserved the medieval streetscape were demolished recently? Equally do they care that the collegiate school masters building on Millgate will be demolished to make way for a hotel?? Or that the Palatine building too is doomed? All of these buildings are far more worthy of preservation for architectural and historical reasons than the building that hosted the twisted wheel. Unfortunately for those buildings though they just didn't/don't appeal to this mythical and emotional sense of what is Mancunian to a certain group of people.

How about this, nobody has the right to say what is an important part of Manchester's cultural history, unless it will bring money in. Cities change all the time. Manchester has such a transient and young population I wonder if even 20% of those in the borough are aware of what the twisted wheel is. And so what? Honestly what is it worth? Future academics that want to talk about how culture was passed from America to Europe in the late 20th c. have film and accounts and a mass of ephemera, what could they ever get from the building? Equally there is no worth in it economically as there would be for the cavern, which is why this comparison is ludicrous. I agree with Architecty, it would be completely unjust if the people who own this property couldn't develop it because a few bleating over-privileged Mancunians carry a warped and emotive sense of the history of Manchester. It's time for these people to move on and realise that just because they care about something that doesn't mean everyone else should.

[kids]

Originally Posted by Cherguevara

Fine, speaking architecturally, I like variation of styles and character. What I dislike is preservation that only keeps the gems and throws everything else away to be replaced by bland non-design. So these buildings aren't stunning; nor are most of the mills around town, or the chimneys, or the workers cottages and weavers houses. But they are very Mancunian and I like that.

Now I'm not saying we have to preserve everything old because it is old, but I'd say as a general preference that any building replacing another should add something to the city rather than taking something away. These designs aren't good enough for me to say it's worth losing the existing character. The fact that you have to completely ignore it's overwhelming feature (the blank wall) to begin to like it speaks volumes. I see what you mean about the massing, but it's still a very bland monolithic structure.

To be honest though my main concern is more to do with the less smart/professional aspects of the city's cultural life being driven out of the centre, and how boring this will leave Manchester.

Walking through town this afternoon I realised how far it is from being a pacified space, there are still so many empty properties and areas down on their luck right in the centre!

A city with the demographic of Manchester will never be boring. It will just be exciting in new and different ways that we should accept.

[Cherguevara]

Originally Posted by kids

Walking through town this afternoon I realised how far it is from being a pacified space, there are still so many empty properties and areas down on their luck right in the centre!

A city with the demographic of Manchester will never be boring. It will just be exciting in new and different ways that we should accept.

I don't think you can say that a prevalence of empty properties means that the destruction of existing social space is unimportant. It means people may have a venue to transfer their activities too (should landlords not be happy to sit on empty properties and let them) but not that those activities will survive to be transferred.

People using the existing clubs (or whatever) will have developed links and associations that are rooted in that place, but that might not survive its removal. Think about slum clearance and how that wrecked inner city communities' social networks and ability to support themselves. This is the same process, except in terms of urban sub-cultures rather than locality based networks. Without spaces for interaction, the potential for a social network to generate new interpersonal links and activities is broken.

The fact that Legends won't close for a year gives me some hope, as does the fact that people seem happy to campaign against this closure (nothing builds social capital like civic activism) but as a general principle, developers transforming communal space into private space is bad for the social networks within the city and therefore bad for the city itself.

[Slow Burn]

Originally Posted by kids

Cities change all the time.

Spot on. If everything stayed the same this site wouldn't even exist

[kids]

Originally Posted by Cherguevara

I don't think you can say that a prevalence of empty properties means that the destruction of existing social space is unimportant. It means people may have a venue to transfer their activities too (should landlords not be happy to sit on empty properties and let them) but not that those activities will survive to be transferred.

People using the existing clubs (or whatever) will have developed links and associations that are rooted in that place, but that might not survive its removal. Think about slum clearance and how that wrecked inner city communities' social networks and ability to support themselves. This is the same process, except in terms of urban sub-cultures rather than locality based networks. Without spaces for interaction, the potential for a social network to generate new interpersonal links and activities is broken.

The fact that Legends won't close for a year gives me some hope, as does the fact that people seem happy to campaign against this closure (nothing builds social capital like civic activism) but as a general principle, developers transforming communal space into private space is bad for the social networks within the city and therefore bad for the city itself.

There will be new networks. New scenes will materialise in other dingy quarters of this overwhelmingly dingy city. This is only one instance of the destruction of what you call a communal space, there is not a whole scale sack of Manchester going on as some like to imagine. There is however a lot of poverty and the place needs investment and some pacification. If it's an issue of inclusivity then that is something for planners to think about in terms of the future development of the village rather than preserving the status quo as a preserve of inclusivity for a minority (seemingly) to have for themselves. No liberties are being lost here, this isn't public property, once the contract is finished the owners a free to close the club and the club is free to move elsewhere. This is not something MCC should consider.

[Lookin Up]

Also, isn't this the site of that 80s smoothie hang-out Placemate 7 with all the different music types in different rooms?
If so, I guess that was its incarnation between Twisted Wheel and Legends.
Just proves doesn't it, that affections for these places are transient.

Although it was long before my time, I'm not sure that the Twisted Wheel was the 'legendary home' of Northern Soul - thought that was Wigan Casino In any case NS really is a niche bit of the music scene - even locally.
Comparing the significance of the TW with the Cavern though is a bit of a joke.

I'm more concerned with losing a bit of Mancunian identity for a bit of Europap and the fact that far more empty / crap sites in the CC actually would benefit from this kind of investment.