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Monkbridge Forge Tower

Doncasters Ltd has plans to close its Monkbridge Forge factory in Whitehall Road later this year. It will seek planning permission for a total of 11 buildings. The tallest of these will be a 38 storey tower. A 20 storey building also features in the plans.

The majority of the scheme will be residential and the rest will be offices, light industrial, bars and restaurants. An island between the Leeds-Liverpool Canal and River Aire may also be made into a park

Data

No. of floors - 38
Height - 118m
Building type - Office & Residential
Year of construction -
Architect -
Location - Whitehall Road, Leeds City Centre

[jimbo]

Found the thread at last - twas at the bottom of the Leeds thread! Hurrah.

Originally Posted by heavymetalmayhem

This was the front page of last weeks Property Week. Same site is it not?

Dutch plan £150m Leeds leviathan

UK arm HBG Properties cashes in on northern renaissance with 500,000 sq ft offices scheme


04.11.2005

By Molly Dover, Sean McAllister

Dutch-owned developer hbg properties is planning one of the north of England’s biggest development projects: a 500,000 sq ft (46,450 sq m) mixed-use scheme in Leeds.

HBG, which is part of the £5.1bn Royal BAM Group, has acquired a 9.5 acre (3.8 ha) development site less than a kilometre to the south-west of Leeds city centre from engineering company Doncasters for £19.25m.

The commercial element alone is expected to be worth £150m. The site already has outline planning consent for a mixed-use scheme but HBG will submit a revised application to increase the office element to more than 500,000 sq ft (46,450 sq m). The scheme will also feature 300 homes, as well as shops on the ground floor.

HBG’s plans have been unveiled at a time of growing prosperity for development across the north, in part encouraged by the government’s Northern Way regeneration initiative.

Leeds is seeking to reassert its authority as an office location, as Manchester has won most of corporate relocations in the north of England in recent years.

Ian Pennington, director of HBG Properties, said: ‘Leeds is the fastest-growing city in the UK. We expect it to continue to grow and take-up to rise year by year. The Leeds property market is one of the most resilient in the country.’

The project will be aimed at law firms, accountants and government tenants.

HBG plans to develop the commercial space in four or five phases but will sell the residential development site once a masterplan is agreed and outline planning consent has been granted.

The developer plans to start work on the commercial element by the middle of next year and the first phase of offices is scheduled to come to the market in autumn 2007.

HBG has invited four architects – Aedas Architects, Allies & Morrison, Edaw and Make – to compete to produce a masterplan.

The site is just outside Leeds city centre, bordered by the mainline railway tracks, the Leeds-to-Liverpool canal, the River Aire and Whitehall Road.

There is a dearth of good-quality new office space in Leeds. HBG’s scheme will rival Hermes/St James’ Wellington Place city centre development, which started in 2002. Four buildings are completed and more are to be developed in a joint venture with Arlington.

Leeds-based Hill Woolhouse advised HBG; Fowler Sandford and Smylie Norden advised Doncasters. DTZ and Hill Woolhouse will be the letting agents for the mixed-use scheme.

It certainly is. Cracking find HMM, I saw the headline on t'internet last week and posted it on the Official Leeds thread, but don't have access to the Property Week website. Certainly explains who bought it the site, which is v. interesting, firstly as the advert was in the summer (so its sold v.quickly) and secondly because HBG are the developers behind the Spiracle Tower and offices on the International Pool site. That's alot of development, and great to see a big firm put so much faith in Leeds.

Hope it still includes the rumoured 38 storey tower, but if a totally new masterplan is in order, then I guess it won't. The other thing is that they might steal a march on Town Centre Securities Whitehall Road scheme or Wellington Place, both of who have lots of office space planned, but seem to be waiting for pre-lets to go ahead. Might gee them up perhaps. Hey ho. If they start mid next year, then I'd suspect a planning application to be submitted anytime. Another Make or Aedas design? And Allies and Morrison involved as well. No Carey Jones. Yeeeeeee!

[Leeds No.1]

This might be one of those projects that suddenly starts out of nowhere like things seem to do. Also Ive not heard 'hurrah' for years!

[ahmedd]

Thought I'd revive this thread as there seems to be some progress.

Planning application

10/02/06
By HBG Properties Ltd
06/00463/LI

Listed Building application for removal of structures and associated work and equipment from railway viaduct arches. Removal of brickwork attached to the viaduct and opening up of all arches by removal of reatailing walls.

At: Former Doncaster Monk Bridge Ltd., Whitehall Road, Lower Wortley, Leeds.

[SmartCity]

Ahmedd ahh!!, I'd noticed that one too. Looks like progress is being made.

[Even Flow]

Lots of demolition going on today. One of the large sheds has gone completely, and there were numerous pieces of plant on site.

[Rob]

I think this is going to be for car parking as a temporary measure, I'm sure I saw a further application for that area for car parking. I suppose now the once popular Globe Road car park site will be no longer available, and the new Globe Rd 2 car park is quite small, there will be a market for a new car park.

It'll be good to see the some of the naff old sheds go.

[Even Flow]

Anyone know when Globe Road car park is officially closing? The marketing suite is progressing well, so they cant be far off starting demolition on the site itself can they?

[jimbo]

Originally Posted by Even Flow

Lots of demolition going on today. One of the large sheds has gone completely, and there were numerous pieces of plant on site.

If you look at post 2 on the thread it suggests that HBG are intending to start construction in the middle of the year to bring the first office elements online by Q3 2007. I'd assume that HBG (a huge international property company) wouldn't need to resort to short term cash generation through the car park option, compared to Town Centre Securities, a veritable minnow in comparison, who have clearly used the current derelict site along Whitehall Road as a basic source of auxiliary income.

Once pp comes through I'd expect the entire Monksbridge site to really kick off, along with Globe Road (Greenbank), it'll be a hive of activity.

That said, we we led to believe that the next phase of Wellington Place to start, the fabled block 3a by Babcock and Brown, would do so in mid 2005, but as yet nothing has transpired.

Is the 38 storey tower still involved? Its not mentioned in the new article and I think was part of the original outline plans put together before Doncasters sold the site on.

[Even Flow]

There are HBG signs all over the demolition fencing if thats anything to go by...

[Talisker]

[Liam]

Any renders of this scheme??

[di Livio]

Originally Posted by Liam

Any renders of this scheme??

None so far, but it's gone to a competition, with Aedas (BWP) and Make (could we see the resurrection of Kite Tower?) both involved.

HBG has invited four architects – Aedas Architects, Allies & Morrison, Edaw and Make – to compete to produce a masterplan.

[Liam]

Originally Posted by di Livio

None so far, but it's gone to a competition, with Aedas (BWP) and Make (could we see the resurrection of Kite Tower?) both involved.

Now that would be a good thing!

[Rob]

Originally Posted by Talisker

These aren't showing up Talisker, any chance of re-posting them from another host ?

[Talisker]

There seems to be a problem with tripod. The photos were of the present site and won't be particularly interesting anyway untill the buildings are replaced

[Mark1511]

Not sure if this is significant or not, but over the past few days I have noticed that there are a lot of diggers, etc, clearing the area behind the actual Docanster works building.

[Rob]

They seem to be demolishing a whole load of it, which is good as those tin sheds don't do that part of the city centre any favours really. It can't be the start of anything big yet as they only have outline permission yet.

Could be linked to Greenbank though, could be another replacement car park as the one on the Greenbank site will be occupied soon.

[aviator]

Posted by Rob:

"They seem to be demolishing a whole load of it, which is good as those tin sheds don't do that part of the city centre any favours really. It can't be the start of anything big yet as they only have outline permission yet."

I took these pics a week ago:









Although there are no architects' images released yet (at least, none that I've seen), I think this is a splendid location and a wonderful opportunity to create a fusion between old and new.

[jimbo]

Walking past on Sunday, I thought I had to get another snap to show the impressive size of the site:\



As aviator says, little news of the site plans / chosen architects / timescales etc. Might be one that surprises us as HBG own the site, and their own construction division, so may see action on the site sooner rather than later, although I'm positive we haven't actually seen a planning application.