Crane Count

400105 Views 2411 Replies 251 Participants Last post by Master_Builder, 16 d ago

caw123

Discussion Starter · Aug 28, 2005 (Edited)

I've listed everything I can remember, arranged roughly by area.

Southern City Centre
Beetham - 2
River City and surrounding projects - 4
St Georges - 3
Vie - 3
GN Tower - 2
Eagle Star House - 2
University Car Park Cambridge St - 2
MRI Superhospital - 5
Aurora - 1

Western City Centre/Greengate
CJC - 3
Spinningfields NCP - 1
Tempus - 1
Spectrum - 2
red ones near Spectrum - 2
John Rylands Library - 1
GMEN - 1
Rosetti Phase Two - 1

Northern City Centre/Piccadilly
Skyline Central - 3
Site next to Skyline Central - 2
Royal Mills/surrounds - 3
Piccadilly Place - 4
Green Quarter - 1
Issa Quay - 1
Piccadilly Car Park - 1
IVLA? - 1
Next to Ovale - 1

Salford Quays
Old Trafford - 2
NV Towers - 1
Citylofts - 2

This gives us 49 in town and 56 including the quays. Phenomenal.

A few more than this I'm sure, what are they people?

Ones to expect soon:

3 & 4 Hardman Square
Chancery Place
Probably a new Green Quarter one for Jefferson Place
Erie Basin Tower
40 Spring Gardens
More at spectrum
Sarah Tower perhaps
Abito
Pall Mall

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SleepyOne

· #2 · Aug 28, 2005

We are down to 5 at the MRI although did you count the crane at Rosetti Place (or has it come down).

I think we are a long time from seeing any work at the Chancery Place site (although I hope Im wrong). Id like to think they've secured the finance to build it speculatively.

40 Spring Gardens and 3 & 4 Hardman Square must be fairly imminent.

Still not convinved anything is happening at the Sarah Tower site. All I can make out is various bits of equipment and soil being moved around rather than any actual digging.

I would expect to see a crane on the Man Uni Chemistry extension soonish.

49 tower cranes in the city centre alone represents an astonishing amount of development though with no sign of it slowing down either.

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SleepyOne

· #7 · Aug 29, 2005

^^ Thats what I suspected. The same developers also have the Great Ancoats St Tower site on the go too.

SleepyOne

· #52 · Oct 28, 2005

Another crane being erected on the Abito site.

SleepyOne

· #63 · Nov 5, 2005

nice work there highriser. How long did that take you?

There is a crane about to go up to build the final quadrant of the Michael Smith building, fronting Upper Brook St on the university campus.

http://www.knowledgehorizons.manchester.ac.uk/facilitiesandequipment/index.asp?facilityID=5

Also plenty of groundwork underway on the site of the AMPPS building too at the moment. That's a massive site. Should be a stunning sight when complete.

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SleepyOne

· #71 · Nov 14, 2005

Only 4 at the MRI now and has the Aurora crane gone down? (Aurora looking very good indeed by the way).

SleepyOne

· #79 · Dec 4, 2005

Yes Highriser - its for this, the new AMPPS building.

Appointing the finger
23 September 2005

Sheppard Robson has won planning permission for a £25 million new building for The University of Manchester. The new building, to be known as AMPPS, will bring together the university’s astronomy, mathematics, physics and photon science departments.

The 17,000sq m building is made up of three finger shapes clad in zinc to create a dramatic facade on Upper Brook Street.

The mathematics and astronomy fingers are linked by a glass walkway suspended above a four-storey atrium, while an over-sailing roof links the three fingers and provides space for solar panels.

Its a massive site. Project Unity is getting into full swing now with several projects under way. There is a new red crane building the final section of the Michael Smith building on Upper Brook Street and across the road they are making very speedy progress on the new student / key worker / commercial / retail scheme on Plymouth Grove:

I notice groundworks are seemingly well underway for Jefferson Place too from Aidans capture of Green Quarter.

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SleepyOne

· #108 · Jan 8, 2006

Tempus has come down but one has gone up on the site of that little office block opposite Beetham.

..... which together with the Humanities building, AMPPS and the student resi being built next to Whitworth Park brings us to 50 in the city centre and 5 at the Quays.

Grand total 55.

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SleepyOne

· #164 · May 13, 2006

Royal Northern College of Music. They are building an extension, replacing the rather brutal frontage to Oxford Road. MBLC are the architects here.

The Oxford Road Wing

The new Oxford Road Wing has been made possible as a result of substantial funding awarded to the RNCM in 2005 by the Higher Education Funding Council for England.

Once built, the fully glazed design by architects mblc will make a bold statement and bring the RNCM's physical presence in the city in line with its international reputation
as a leading conservatoire and arts centre.

The new accommodation is an essential part of the Centre for Excellence in Teaching and Learning initiative. It will house the RNCM Centre for Young Musicians, incorporating the Junior RNCM, the award-winning Junior Strings Project and a new Junior Wind, Brass and Percussion Project, as well as providing much-needed teaching and rehearsal rooms, and dedicated space for new professional partners such as Manchester Camerata, Artis and Access to Music.

Construction will start in early 2006. The building is expected to be ready for use by Spring 2007

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SleepyOne

· #166 · May 13, 2006 (Edited)

Well to be fair, i dont think that image gives an accurate impression of the finished product. MBLC are a great firm of architects and they have a very difficult task to graft a new extension onto the large, artless lump of grey 1970s concrete that is the rest of the building. If the cladding is tops Im sure this will be a vast improvement on what was there before.

EDIT - I do also agree with you - is this good enough for such a prestigous institution? This is perhaps why I am such a fervent supporter of what is happening at New Islington. It will be good to see the architectural establishment in Manchester being challenged to go that extra mile and produce even better or more imaginative designs outside their usual aesthetic (although MBLC have one of the more interesting and diverse portfolios it would seem).

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SleepyOne

· #174 · May 31, 2006

yes its building the retail / mixed use element of this PFI-funded regeneration of the estate. A most welcome addition to Stockport Road it is too. I remember reading MANCAT have also taken space within the development too. This is what regeneration is all about!

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SleepyOne

· #193 · Aug 14, 2006

Im pretty sure its for CHIPS as reported on the New Islington thread. There's so much going on in that part of town now. There are a couple of bases going in for the ISIS development which sits just infront.

SleepyOne

· #209 · Oct 28, 2006

There's a small crane in the macintosh village area, opposite b4mmys quadrangle building on cambridge st. Don't have a clue what they're building there it's just a steel fram so far..probably student housing.

Is it this development by Mayfair?

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SleepyOne

· #210 · Oct 28, 2006

Southern City Centre
River City/Hill Quays - 1
River Place - 1
Cobbett's Mosley St - 2
80 Moseley St - 1
Deansgate facing Beeetham - 2

MRI Superhospital -4
Upper Brook St - 1
Plymouth Grove - 2
RNCM - 1
Maths Tower site - 2
Stockport Road - 2

Western City Centre/Greengate
Hardman Sq - 3
Spectrum - 1

Northern City Centre/Piccadilly
Skyline Central - 2
Islington Wharf - 2
Piccadilly Place - 4
BDP HQ - 1
Green Quarter - 2
Spear St - 1
Pall Mall - 1
Eastside Valley - 2
Berry St - 2
CHIPS - 1
Sports City - 1

Salford Quays
Erie Basin - 2
Taylorson St - 1

Broadway Flats - 1
Stretford Road - 1
Mellands Gorton - 1

Im not sure how accurate this list is. The cranes at Cobbetts House have long since disappeared. No more cranes at Eastside Valley either. I think a few others have disappeared too.

Anyone noticed how the River Place development has come to a shuddering halt. The concrete frame has been erected but no work has been done in a long time. Wonder why.

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SleepyOne

· #213 · Oct 30, 2006

ok Ill speculate.

The developers have gone bust.

The architects / engineers / consultants got their sums wrong meaning the thing is no longer viable.

Someone is doing a bit of speculative land assembly.

They forgot to obtain planning permission!!

Any of the above?

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SleepyOne

· #277 · Jun 17, 2007

There's a crane going up on the Spectrum phase II site on Blackfriars road.

SleepyOne

· #281 · Jun 17, 2007

Yes I was looking forward to Chancery Place until I saw some of the renders looking from Cross St and Albert Square which seem to depict a rather monolithic building and some quite inelegant proportions from certain viewpoints. I think part of the problem is that its an irregular shaped building and the smooth all encompassing glass cladding does not help one to easily read its shape and as a result the layout of surrounding streets - a cruical attribute of an 'island' building.

I hope these concerns turn out to be unfounded and merely a false impression created by some poor rendering. We shall see.

As for Belvedere House, there's a downloadable brochure with some large full colour images here.

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SleepyOne

· #283 · Jun 17, 2007

Well yes, you are quite right. The Belvedere House proposal has been around for a long time - since 2001 in fact. The version they are building is a slightly updated design of the original which really did look dated. Its substantially cleaner and slicker looking than the original but still features some of the same highly layered and deconstructed looks that were fashionable around the late 90s.

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SleepyOne

· #285 · Jul 5, 2007

Really heartening to see a tower crane on Chapel St on the cleared site over the road from the TGWU building. Okay so this may have little to do with the long awaited URC / ECF / SCC regeneration vision for Central Salford but it does demonstrate that a developer has decided to take the plunge and invest in development rather than sitting on its hands waiting for values to rise. Lets hope this signals the start of many more of these derelict sites that litter Chapel St being brought back into use.

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SleepyOne

· #287 · Jul 9, 2007

A second crane being erected at the Spectrum site today.

SleepyOne

· #386 · Dec 14, 2007

I think the new crane off Chapel St is for this.

http://www.lifebuildings.com/albertmill.html

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