May 2009 Archives

My colleague Stacey Meadwell has taken some photos of Grosvenor's Liverpool One, which celebrates its 1st birthday today, showing that quite a few of the smaller retail units are yet to let. As can be seen here, there's a concentration of vacancies around the designer-led Peter's Lane part of the scheme. The photo was taken on a Friday morning earlier this month.

This bit of Liverpool One opened in the second phase last autumn and arguably hasn't been helped by the fact that the flagship Top Shop here has not yet opened. Once Top Shop opens during the summer, it's likely that footfall here will rocket, perhaps encouraging other retailers to move in.

Liverpool One's management has agreed monthly rent payments with some tenants although only one retailer - Principles - has so far been forced to close. Zavvi is now trading as Head, following a buy-out by former Zavvi chief executive Simon Douglas.

Grosvenor says the scheme is 96% let overall, while Liverpool has climed to 5th overall in the Experian retail rankings since Liverpool One opened.

Photo by Stacey Meadwell used under Creative Commons

This is the new Express by Holiday Inn hotel at Smithfield, in Manchester's Northern Quarter, which has recently been granted planning permission. I suppose it's a matter of taste about whether Smithfield needs another big-box hotel. A lot of the Northern Quarter is feeling quite mainstream these days, particularly the bar strip along Thomas Street. Still, developer Muse, which has been involved in the area since 2001, says its design will be sympathetic to the Northern Quarter's unique qualities. As a bonus, a 14,000 sq ft public square is also included in the plans. The hotel is expected to open in 2011.

I've received an image of the new "Heart of Africa" development, which is in the pipeline as part of a wider redevelopment of Chester Zoo known as Natural Vision. It's expected to go before planners later this year and includes new animal enclosures, as well as a hotel. There'll be a bit more about this in EG on 13 June.

 

The long-awaited public inquiry into the second Mersey crossing opened in Widnes today, with an outcome in favour of building the bridge likely to facilitate a wave of development on both sides of the river. Urban Splash, which wants to develop a scheme in Runcorn, stands to benefit from the improved infrastructure, as does St Modwen, which is involved with the Widnes Waterfront site.

The main sticking point appears to be proposals to introduce tolls not only for the new bridge, known as Mersey Gateway, but also for the existing Silver Jubilee Bridge. A pressure group called the National Authority Against Tolls (using the catchy acronym NAAT) claims the idea will create an "economic blight" across the area.

On the other hand, Tony McDermott, the leader of Halton council (that's the bit around Widnes and Runcorn), says the existing bridge is suffering from "acute failure" and that building a new one

is economic, it fits the environment and it is deliverable within the funding terms we have agreed with Government.

There is an official public inquiry website but it doesn't say how long the inquiry is supposed to last. The programme for the inquiry has yet to appear on the site and will be published "when prepared". However, if the scheme is approved by the Secretary of State, work on the bridge could begin in 2011, with completion in 2014.

 

 

I was at the EG Focus reception in Liverpool last night, ahead of the publication of the magazine's Merseyside features next month. We had a good turnout, despite managing to clash again with another event (a RICS pub quiz, of all things).

The venue in Liverpool was Kingdom, same as last year. It's a really swish place - lots of white leather sofas and ice buckets integrated into the tables, that sort of thing.

As regards the property market, the mood locally could be described as "cautious optimism" (if that isn't too much of a cliché). In previous recessions the city was savaged but I think everyone feels the impact this time won't be so severe, thanks to the continued wave of public and private investment that has poured in since the late-1990s.

On the new EG podcast (see below) you can hear me talking to Paul Rice, chief executive of the Liverpool Commercial District Partnership, who thinks the city is "set quite fair once the recovery starts". I also speak to David Sayer, head of GVA Grimley in the city. You'll need to listen quite carefully to David though, thanks to some technological misbehaviour on the part of my microphone.

 

West Properties (Princess Street), the vehicle behind the Origin development in Manchester, has apparently been threatened with being struck off the Companies House register after failing to submit its accounts on time in January.

The Manchester Evening News reports that the firm could have had its assets seized if Companies House had carried through the threat but West MD Donal Mulryan has blamed the mess-up on an "administrative error". He says the accounts will be filed this week.

Anyone walking down Princess Street recently will have noticed that work has ground to a halt at Origin. While a couple of tower cranes remain, there were absolutely no signs of life when I peered into the construction site the week before last.

I'm told that delays are down to a series of factors. The initial hold-up was due to the extension of the hotel element by three storeys, which was finally given the all-clear only in December. Meetings are about to take place with hotel operator Starwood in New York over the appointment of an interior designer, which should be finalised by the end of June. Meanwhile, West is going to appoint a new sub-contractor to take the project forward.

While the scheme has been delayed, West believes an early-2011 opening for the hotel will be ideal timing and work is likely to re-commence in July to that end. Starwood will operate the hotel under its W Hotels banner and since pop star Shakira recently opened the new one in Qatar, the opening in Manchester is likely to be a very high profile affair.

With developers under pressure all over the place, any delay to a major scheme like this tends to make everybody a bit nervous. Thanks to the Starwood prelet, it sounds as though West is in a decent position to get on and deliver the scheme.

EGi subscriber links (login required):

W Hotels checks into London and Manchester (3 September 2008)

West Properties returns to Origins (26 May 2007)

The winners of EG's North West regional awards were presented on Friday night. This year, they have been separated from the national awards and the winners in the regions will automatically go forward for the national event in London in September.

We received 4,000 votes from EG readers for the regional awards. The winner of the North West Property Adviser of the Year was [drum roll...] Mason Owen, while the Property Company of the Year went to [dramatic pause...] Peel Holdings.

The presentation took place at the City of Manchester stadium as part of the RICS North West regional awards, for which EG was media partner. Jonathan Hamer, EG's head of sales, has helpfully posted a video to YouTube (see below), which shows me presenting them to Paul Moran, MD of Mason Owen, and James Whittaker, development director at Peel. Thankfully Jonathan was relatively sober, so it's not too shaky. I'm also sober, which explains why I can't get my words out properly.

And yes, that really is Nicholas Owen the newsreader introducing me.

In the RICS awards, the big winner was the redevelopment of Gorton Monastery, which took the main prize of RICS North West Awards Project of the Year. Grosvenor's Liverpool One also did well, taking two awards, one for regeneration and one for commercial development of the year.

 

In case you hadn't noticed, Urban Splash, like me, has a blog. Tom Bloxham wrote an entry there earlier this week (his first, I think), in which he reacts to the BBC documentary Romancing the Stone, part of the English Heritage series. The programme aired on 1 May and was all about the redevelopment of Park Hill in Sheffield. (It's still available on iPlayer, although it expires on 22 May.)

The decision to list the brutalist housing estate (yes, I know it's not in the North West, but Urban Splash are), and the subsequent controversy that sprang up, was the focus of the piece. Although he declines to vent spleen too heartily, I get the feeling Tom wasn't that impressed. He says:

There are plenty of sceptics about and although I've never made a TV programme, I think it's probably easier to make a documentary than deliver a project like Park Hill.

Ouch.

The reviews elsewhere, generously linked to by Bloxham, include one in the Guardian, which takes a pop at Urban Splash's marketing material:

Urban Splash's brochure for Park Hill is full of quotations from such Sheffield bands as the Human League and ABC, all written in music-press clichés, promising to restore "the love" to Park Hill.

The review also entertainingly bemoans the documentary's reliance on stereotypes:

...The English Heritage contingent speak in cultured accents, the developers are flash Mancunians, the restoration's architect a middle-aged Frenchman who dresses in lime green, and the locals are presented as bluff Yorkshiremen who don't know much about architecture, but know what they like.

An accurate summary, I'm sure you'll agree, of the industry we all know and love.

I'm David Quinn, the North and Scotland regional editor at Estates Gazette, and this post is an introduction to my new blog on commercial property in the North West.

I'll be linking to interesting stuff that I've spotted around the internet and writing down my observations about the market and the companies and personalities who make it what it is. At times it might simply resemble an open notebook, with the latest interesting nuggets I've come across posted here for you to read.

This is a bit of a voyage of discovery for me but I think it will be a good addition to Estates Gazette's coverage of the North West market. 

I'm keen to hear your views on what appears on this blog. The comments section is awaiting your input. And if you're feeling especially webtastic, then you may be interested to know that I'm also on Twitter at twitter.com/EGDavidQuinn.

OK, so what shall I write?