£150m plan for brewery village pulling world investors

THE £150m Cains Brewery Village development in Liverpool – expected to create more than 500 jobs – is attracting global investors.

Owners and brothers Ajmail and Sudarghara Dusanj have engaged commercial property company Colliers International to administer the scheme which has aroused strong interest from London, China and Middle East.

Colliers has officially approached the global investment market for the first time and work could start on the site at the back end of this year.

Andy Delaney, head of Colliers Liverpool office unveiled the plans at the Liverpool stand at the MIPIM international property and investment event in Cannes.

The Grade II-listed former Cains Brewery in Stanhope Street  building has more than 1m sq ft of space. The project involves the creation of a craft brewery and visitor centre, an artisan food producers market, a 94-room boutique hotel, an art house cinema, restaurants, bars and 725 apartments.

The St James Street railway station, abandoned years ago, could also be brought back into use. The station on Merseyrail’s Northern Line between Central and Brunswick stations, was last used nearly 100 years ago.

Colliers believes it could attract 2.5m visitors a year, adding £25m to the city’s annual economic output and see the creation of more than 500 jobs.

The firm has now appointed a full project team and are confident the scheme will finally go ahead over the next 12 months.

Delaney told the Liverpool Echo: “We are now ready to go to the market with the scheme for the first time. We have had interest from local developers and from investment funds.

“Its is great for the city that these funds are taking a real interest and it shows to what extent the market has improved.

 “Values have now reached a point in Liverpool where we don’t need, for example, the city council to provide the freehold to make it viable.”

He added that a small number of digital businesses had already moved into the former brewery offices and that the Baltic Triangle area has become a thriving cluster of creative and digital firms.

Meanwhile, Liverpool Biennial Arts Festival will also be using some of the space in the summer.