Manchester’s Printworks recover from terror attack with successful end to year
The new owners of The Printworks say the leisure complex has survived a tough year.
Since purchasing The Printworks from Land Securities in early 2017 commercial real estate manager DTZ Investors say the city centre based leisure site has bucked the trend of the wider market with growing revenues and footfall.
The city centre and the centre took a huge knock following the terror attack at the Manchester Arena in May of last year.
The Printworks bounced in the second half of 2017 and venues within the scheme reported record figures.
The end of the year was also a good month for visitor figures, finishing in excess of 7% up on 2016.
Fred Booth, director of The Printworks, said: “There is no denying that the terror attack at Manchester Arena in 2017 had a huge effect on the business as a whole.
“It was both distressing as a Mancunian and as director of this scheme but we were proud to see the city bounce back and knew that as we saw people start to come back to the city centre again soon afterwards that the people of Greater Manchester are extremely resilient.”
The August bank holiday Soul Festival, which raises money for The Christie, saw over 47,000 visitors through the doors in just one Sunday.
The event which is now in its fourth year has raised in excess of £65,000 for the charity.
The site which is anchored by the newly purchased Vue Cinema, which rebranded from Odeon in the first quarter of 2017, is continuing to go from strength to strength across its day and night time offering.
Other improvements have included the conversion from Harvester to O’Neills and the opening of the Lazy Lizard Ibizan Beach Lounge in a previously vacant 8132 sq foot unit with capacity for 800 customers spread over two floors.
The new owners have remodelled existing space to create a new lettable unit on the second floor of the building with its own entrance point which will create the perfect site for a forthcoming family-friendly mini golf attraction.
DTZ Investors and managing agents Cushman & Wakefield have announced that deals have been secured with two leisure brands to bring exciting new experience based operations to the site in the form of a rainforest-themed mini golf attraction from Treetop Adventure Golf and a new escape room from Escape Games.
Treetop Adventure Golf will be on the second floor and will feature two Amazon themed indoor, 18-hole mini-golf courses suitable for the whole family whilst Escape Games will be in a freshly created space above Prezzo.
Both attractions will open this summer.
Elizabeth Stanway, chief executive of Treetop Adventure Golf, said: “We can’t wait to bring our mini golf experience, inspired by Brazil and the Amazon rainforest, to The Printworks and the centre of Manchester.”
Alice Beesley from Escape Reality said: “We are absolutely delighted to be part of The Printworks. We wanted to bring a next level Escape Room brand to Manchester and we are now in an iconic location.”
The site will welcome three brand new events this year in the form of fan conventions for the film and TV favourites Harry Potter (DraigCon), Game of Thrones (ThronesCon) and Dr Who (VWORP).
DTZ Investors is committed to further improving The Printworks and a substantial budget will be invested in improvements to the internal common areas to encompass new and improved lighting, changes to the internal façade and more.
A spokesperson for DTZ Investors said; “We’ve invested heavily since acquiring the property in 2017 and we see this continuing. We are confident that the success of the scheme is underpinned by the strengths and growth we have seen in the past 12 months and we look forward to seeing what it can achieve in 2018 and beyond.”
