£75m hotel and homes scheme submitted for approval

A planning application for the reworked scheme to regenerate the site on the corner of Princess Street and Whitworth Street near to Manchester’s Gay Village has been submitted to the City Council.It includes two residential buildings comprising 238 apartments, a 148 bedroom four-star hotel, ground floor commercial units and a new landscaped public square over the existing four-level basement car park.Urban & Civic bought the one-acre site with existing planning consent in December last year. Since that consent was granted in 2007 a number of factors have changed including the economy and property market as well as thinking about design and uses, so Urban&Civic has worked on a revised scheme that better reflects the current market and its aspirations for the site.The new scheme was presented at a public exhibition on September 11 and 12.The revised design, which broadly reflects the height and massing of the consented scheme, creates a contemporary reinterpretation of key architectural characteristics of historic buildings within the Conservation Area and sensitively reconnects the site to its surroundings.Subject to planning permission being granted, work would start on the initial phase of residential buildings in summer 2016, with the first new residents moving in 20 months later.