£26m hotel plan for City Building moves forwards

THE next significant phase of the Co-operative’s NOMA scheme looks set to go ahead with a £26m plan to redevelop the City Building near Victoria Station into a 178-bed hotel now progressing.

The Co-operative Group has submitted a joint application alongside Denizen Contracts – the Wigan-based building firm owned by property entrepreneur Paul Bolton – to knock down the neighbouring 40-44 Millgate building and redevelop City Building, which will involve the creation of a curved 17-storey tower reaching above the building’s ground floor level.

Manchester City Council’s planning officers are recommending that the scheme is approved. A decision will be taken by its planning committee tomorrow.

If approval is granted, the hotel would be operated by Sanguine Hospitality – the Liverpool-based operator of hotels for Intercontinental Hotels Group (IHG) and Hilton, which is co-owned by Mr Bolton and by Simon Matthews-Williams.

Sanguine will operate the hotel under IHG’s “boutique” Hotel Indigo brand. A Marco Pierre-White Steakhouse Bar & Grill, gym and retail/financial services units would also be created on the lower floors.

The application states that the site is currently semi-derelict after both the City Buildings site and a former Post Office at the Long Millgate building were vacated in 2004, and that both buildings had deteriorated “rapidly” since.

Bringing it back into use would secure a meaningful future for City Buildings, as well as creating 28 construction jobs and around 188 full-time jobs once complete.

It will also form “a key gateway project within the NOMA Masterplan area and a fundamental part of the future regeneration of the Northern Gateway”.

Muse Developments, which is spearheading the neighbouring redevelopment of land around Network Rail’s Victoria Station, has welcomed the scheme, stating that it would create a “compatible and mutually beneficial future use” for its proposed development.

However, it has also sought assurances that its construction will not affect planned access for the Fishdock site it is looking to redevelop for Network Rail next to Victoria Station.