Property briefs: Urban Bubble; Bruntwood; McGoff & Byrne
PROPERTY management firm Urban Bubble has been appointed to manage new residential schemes One Smithfield Square in Manchester’s Northern Quarter and Vimto Gardens in Salford.
Vimto Gardens, an English Cities Fund (ECf) scheme, is a new six-storey development of 83 apartments and 14 townhouses in the Chapel Street regeneration area of Salford.
One Smithfield Square in the Northern Quarter is part of Muse’s Smithfield regeneration scheme and will be complete by the end of year with 77 apartments, all of which have already been sold to Oxford-based property investor GRE Assets.
Michael Howard, managing director of Urbanbubble, said: “The last five years have been fantastic, we’ve grown from a standing start and to now have leading developers such as Muse Developments choosing urbanbubble to manage their large residential schemes is a very big step forward.”
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BRUNTWOOD is planning to expand the serviced office space at Lowry House in Manchester.
It said the launch of a business lounge at the Marble Street building, called The Lounge, was behind a spate of enquiries that have absorbed spare space.
Since the lounge opened several months ago it has done six deals covering 53 desks. It is now looking at adding another floor which would increase the serviced workstations from 269 to 337.
Charlie Beck, head of serviced space in Manchester, said: “The Lounge at Lowry House has been an immediate success, both as an amenity for our existing customers and as an attraction for new customers. It’s been so well received that we are now looking at adding customer lounges in Liverpool, Birmingham and Leeds in the not too distant future. That means our serviced space customers can use The Lounge when conducting business in our other locations. So a Manchester customer for instance will be able to use the proposed lounge at The Plaza when doing business in Liverpool.”
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ALTRINCHAM-based construction company McGoff & Byrne is launching a new facilities management division.
The firm said it will enable it to handle a wide range of requirements including maintenance, cleaning and waste management on a retained or case-by-case basis.
The division aims to achieve annual turnover of £3m and will be managed by Graham Forrester who joins McGoff & Byrne from AA Projects.
Focusing on the North West and Midlands initially, the business has secured three new clients that will require its services on an on-going basis: Manchester Airports Group, The Garden Centre Group, and New Care Projects.
