Minerva/Capitol House redevelopment

[Skychaser 2005]

A great find from Even Flow now in this new thread:

BIG NEWS in property week today:

Quote:
Abstract and Evans team up for £275m Leeds office giant
20.03.08

Joint venture plans 50:50 redevelopment of Minerva and Capitol houses in Yorkshire city

By David Doyle and Laura Chesters

Mark Glatman’s Abstract Securities has teamed up with Evans Property Group for a £275m office development in Leeds.

Glatman, the man behind the 300,000 sq ft Colmore Plaza office scheme in Birmingham, has formed a 50:50 joint venture with Evans to redevelop Evans’ Minerva House, Capitol House and an adjacent multistorey car park.

The sites, which have a combined value of around £32m, comprise around 120,000 sq ft of office space.

The joint venture called Evans Abstract plans to redevelop the site to create 500,000 sq ft of ‘London-standard offices’ with the aim of breaking rental records in the Yorkshire city.

Story continues.............
http://www.propertyweek.com/story.as...rycode=3109250

[Leeds No.1]

Sounds excellent news that they have such high ambitions. And it should be succesful when office demand is so high in the city. Someone asked where this was; it's on the corner of Infirmary Street and East Parade. You can't really do much better than that if you're looking for a good location!



I think we can expect a high quality project, in the same league as No.1 Park Row, No.1 City Sq. and City Square House.

[Bulldozer]

From the 1st post does the site not include that Ugly Stacking Carpark block in the middle of the photo there as well?

That would mean with the inclusion of part of the road which is a dead end its a Large site There, Fronting onto the Loop Road.

[Leeds No.1]

Oh yes you're right it does. This really will create a large amount of prime space.

Oh btw shouldn't this thread be named as standard?

[Subliving]

As an individual building with a floor area of 40x40m, that would make it 29 storeys high. I think. Quite significnt for this end of town. If it's office buildings rather than resi which have lower ceiling heights that would surely make a 110-130m tower... not at all appropriate for this site. I can see it turning into an 80m tower and a groundscraper of 40m or so.

Subliving.

[Val Verde]

Excellent.

So is there any timeframe and surely this redevelopment would do a lot to improve the street interaction which at present having to walk under one of these blocks is rather poor as well as the reminders of the largely demolished and maligned 1970s skyway.

It can only improve this corner of the city centre and should hopefully be rather tall as per what Subliving said. I wonder if there could perhaps be room in this development for a quality new square which could be something to encourage more bars, shops, restaurants etc down this end as it would surely be a highly prime location?

[LeedsLad]

Will be good to see the back of 2 of the more ugly buildings in town too.

I hear a lot about the skyway - but have only really seen pics of the City Square section - are there any more history/pics sites? Which bit on the above pic is the remains of the skyway?

[aviator]

Originally Posted by LeedsLad

Will be good to see the back of 2 of the more ugly buildings in town too.

I hear a lot about the skyway - but have only really seen pics of the City Square section - are there any more history/pics sites? Which bit on the above pic is the remains of the skyway?

I entirely agree with your sentiments.

As for the skyway, look to the bottom of the picture. There's a kind of large roof terrace there; until recently, it was connected to the brown brick building you can just see at the bottom right corner, and a spiral ramp led to ground level.





When I first visited Leeds, the skyway continued from there across the front of the Norwich Union building at the top of City Square, then across Park Row until it finally disappeared into the Bond Street Centre (or whatever the Leeds Shopping Plaza was called in those days.





Going back to the picture, if you stand outside Est Est Est and look across East Parade, you can see the former Bank of England building (left background in the photo below) which was built with skyway terraces on two sides of the building.

[Val Verde]

The 1970s Leeds Skyway was a hurrendous white elephant as hardly anyone used the skyway to walk on and just walked at street level instead and it obviously gave a poorer urban environment at this end of Leeds City Centre. I wonder who thought that the idea of a skyway would have been a good one for Leeds and it is fortunate that it was only partially built and latterly almost completely demolished around the mid 1990s.

As for where these remnants of the Skyway are Aviator you can clearly see on the podiums of Minerva House and Capitol House a large area which was designed to be walked on and presumably have entrances to the respective office blocks at Skyway level. They have stair access up to them which at Minerva House is between Gourmet Burger Kitchen and Akbars (which would have led up to this skyway) although they are closed to the public.

You can also mention that the only public section of this skyway remaining are those two bridges between the Leeds Shopping Plaza and Trinity Quarter and there is also an isolated section of skyway attached to Millgarth Police Station which is closed off from the public and was inteded to have a first floor main entrance which was never used. The map below shows the approx route of the Infirmary Street section of the Skyway with the Bank of England section which was never connected anywhere.



I would love to see just how extensive this planned Skyway was to be?

Going off topic but considering it is in the same neck of the woods has anyone taken on that old Yorkshire Bank HQ oppsite from Capitol House yet on Infirmary Street?

[Val Verde]

And here is a picture of the Infirmary Street skyway in all of its glory from 1981 with the now demolished and unmissed Norwich Union and NatWest (I think as I saw a pic of that building which had the NatWest logo on it) buildings fronting onto City Square and note how the entrances running onto the first floor of these buildings as well the skyway run into what was then known as the Bond Street Centre (now Leeds Shopping Plaza). http://www.flickr.com/photos/danielr...7594048827351/



Out of interest when was Minerva House refurbished to how it appears today as in 1981 it clearly has a different visual appearance was it sometime in the late 1980s / early 1990s?

[Leeds No.1]

I'm always amazed at how much the city has changed when looking back on old pictures. I can't believe that is what City Square looked like not too long ago. Quite astonishing how far the city has come.

[wiggleyleeds]

i dunno, i think it looks more urban and city like in that old b & w picture.. there appears to be more high rises? it looks more like brum

[Leeds No.1]

Yes it does, I know what you mean. However, when you actually analyse that picture you realise that the buildings we have now are bigger and taller, and of higher quality creating a more aesthetically pleasing environment.

[LeedsLad]

Cheers for all the skyway info guys - very interesting indeed!! Do we think the podium of what is the Plaza Hotel was also intended to be linked?
Very futuristic concept and I never knew it existed - which maybe shows how successful it was in a way.
There must be some old plans/articles somewhere? Maybe the secretleeds forum guys can help?

[Neilynoo]

With regards to the skyway, there was also an escalator connecting the walkway on Capitol House to street level coming out where Ainsleys is(roughly). If you look at the arial photo you can see the curved plastic roof on the walkway which covered the escaltors. These were never used to my knowledge and the gates were always locked.
Also opposite Minerva House on East Parade was Devereaux House which also had a walkway incorporated into it but I only remeber it being used as a bar/nightclub venue in the late '70's early '80's. It was demolished some time ago now as it was a particularly ugly building!

[riclam]

you could get onto skyway over park row via a travelator by side of boots i fink an another way onto other part of it was in between co-op and c & A, covered by hoardings at moment and you could get on to it too at top of travelators i think

[Jonaldo]

Originally Posted by Neilynoo

With regards to the skyway, there was also an escalator connecting the walkway on Capitol House to street level coming out where Ainsleys is(roughly). If you look at the arial photo you can see the curved plastic roof on the walkway which covered the escaltors. These were never used to my knowledge and the gates were always locked.
Also opposite Minerva House on East Parade was Devereaux House which also had a walkway incorporated into it but I only remeber it being used as a bar/nightclub venue in the late '70's early '80's. It was demolished some time ago now as it was a particularly ugly building!

Showing my age now but I seem to remember using them escalators as a child. And also I one got thrown out of a nightclub pretty much opposite the entrance to est est est (over the rd). I think that would have been the early to mid 90's though!!

[riclam]

Originally Posted by Neilynoo

With regards to the skyway, there was also an escalator connecting the walkway on Capitol House to street level coming out where Ainsleys is(roughly). If you look at the arial photo you can see the curved plastic roof on the walkway which covered the escaltors. These were never used to my knowledge and the gates were always locked.
Also opposite Minerva House on East Parade was Devereaux House which also had a walkway incorporated into it but I only remeber it being used as a bar/nightclub venue in the late '70's early '80's. It was demolished some time ago now as it was a particularly ugly building!

curved platsic roof is still there suprisingly, wonder what will happen to remians outside wilkinsons

[EssexDan86]

I hope the redevelopment keeps the row of food outlets on the ground floor (Ainsleys, Subway, Yo Sushi etc), they're a lifeline to us office workers in the neighbourhood!

[leeds the best]

Is anything going to happen to that awful vacant car park next to this.Its empty now and is pretty horrible,they should tear it down and replace it with more grade a office space.