Northern Quarter warehouse to be turned into trendy hotel, gym and restaurant

London Warehouse

A former Victorian warehouse in Manchester is to be transformed into a boutique hotel, bars, restaurant and gym.

The London Warehouse in Ducie Street, on the fringes of the Northern Quarter, will be home to a collective of trendy businesses.

New uses will include sleeping, dining, drinking, meeting, working, film and fitness.

This involves apart-hotel specialist Native who will create 166 high quality suites.

Bistrotheque will operate on the ground floor and will run a lounge, restaurant, coffee counter, mini cinema, bar, meetings rooms, private dining and outdoor terraces.

And BLOK will bring together fitness, art, design and fashion with their first gym space outside of London.

Guy Nixon, founder and chief executive of Native, said: “Design and cultural collaboration are at the heart of Native’s approach to creating unique experiences for our guests.

“The purchase of the former Place Aparthotel has been a sector-defining opportunity for us to work with the industry’s best creatives, architects and designers.

“With over 100,000 square feet of space, this has been an extraordinary opportunity to take one of the great icons of Manchester’s industrial past and turn it into a major destination for the city.

“Having grown up in Huddersfield, Manchester exerted a very strong pull on me in my formative years.

“It’s a city with a keen sense of self and strong cultural foundations. It’s also an exciting city to be in right now and we hope that we can become just one small piece in what is a highly dynamic jigsaw.”

Reema Stanbury, BLOK, said: “Manchester was a natural choice for the third BLOK as it is such a key location for art, design, fashion and technology.

“We are drawn to creative hubs and Manchester, especially the Northern Quarter, has a thriving and growing creative community.

“Our goal has always been to create more than just a gym, and for every BLOK site to be a genuine destination. With a strong emphasis on architecture and design, the London Warehouse development is the perfect location and through our partnership with Native and Bistrotheque we are able to create something which truly is the ultimate cultural destination.”

Founded by Guy Nixon and now 70% owned by Ares Management, Native is among the pioneers of the aparthotel sector in the UK, able to buy, lease and manage assets as well as working with a broad range of third party institutional and private equity investors.

Native is working with restaurant, fitness, meeting, event and co-working operators to offer a carefully curated mix of onsite amenities for guests and the local community.

Native will operate in excess of 1,000 units by the end of 2018, growing to 2,000 over the following 18 months.

Bistrotheque was founded by Pablo Flack and David Waddington.

They met in Shoreditch during the mid 1990’s, where David followed Pablo as general manager of the Bricklayers Arms, a pub often credited as helping to establish the East End hipster scene.

By 2004 they had found, developed and opened Bistrotheque, which quickly became a favourite of the creative crowd.

Its approach is to offer uncomplicated good food, drink and service with common sense and good taste. The kitchen is led by chef director, Blaine Duffy.

In 2006 Bistrotheque were the first people to put the words pop-up and restaurant together, this led to four major temporary projects: The Reindeer, FLASH, Studio East Dining, and King’s Cross Filling Station.

In 2013 they created Hoi Polloi for Ace Hotel London Shoreditch. Bistrotheque projects have won two coveted D&AD Yellow Pencils, a RIBA Small Project Award, Time Out Local Favourite, Tatler Best Room and the London Restaurant Festival Award for Innovation.

Founding partners Ed Stanbury, Max Oppenheim, and Reema Stanbury continue to lead the way in the luxury gym sector with a trio of experience in construction, photography and marketing.

Click here to sign up to receive our new South West business news...
Close