Property round-up: Hall & Co; The Apiary; Project 500; Capital&Centric; Moss Industrial Estate; Weru UK; Savills; Watson

Family-run property developer, Hall & Co, has submitted proposals for a new residential scheme in Stockport.
Designed by Ollier Smurthwaite Architects, 48 Churchgate will provide 27 one- and two-bed apartments in Stockport’s Old Town.
The scheme is designed to blend seamlessly with the area’s urban grain, complementing its surroundings. Residents will enjoy a private communal garden, plus a winter garden in each apartment.
The plans would see the demolition of existing buildings and the redevelopment of a car park, creating new apartments just a short stroll from the town’s shops, bars and eateries.
Jamie Hall, Director at Hall & Co Property, said: “48 Churchgate is a continuation of a series of projects we are under way with in the Underbanks area, transforming under-used buildings to create high quality new apartments.
“We’re pleased to be able to invest further in Stockport town centre, contributing to the exciting new vision for the town and its ambitious housing targets.”
Hall & Co is currently on site with Albion House and St Mary’s Gate in the Underbanks area of the town centre having worked closely with Stockport Council to design and deliver schemes that sit comfortably alongside the area’s various heritage assets.
Hall & Co was advised by Broadgrove Planning and Development.
::
Zenith Partners has appointed Savills and Sixteen as joint letting agents at the newly rebranded The Apiary, as works commenced on site over the past quarter of 2024.
Located on 86 Deansgate in Manchester city centre and overlooking Parsonage Gardens, The Apiary will offer a compelling combination of refurbished CAT B and CAT A office spaces, a high quality gym and wellness studio with changing facilities and a contemporary new reception from £27.50 per sq ft.
Commercial interiors studio Incognito is leading the property’s re-design, while Bloc and Flexible Business Interiors have been retained to manage and run the refurbishment works.
The 50,000 sq ft building is due to reach practical completion in March 2025 and will offer modern office space from 4,000 sq ft up to circa 25,000 sq ft across three floors with an EPC rating of B and basement EV charging points.
Richard Lowe, office agency director at Savills Manchester, said: “At a time when fitted office solutions are an increasingly attractive proposition to occupiers, The Apiary will offer some much needed high quality, boutique offices in the city centre at an attractive price point.
“With suites to suit a diverse range of requirements and a wealth of amenities within the building, we are confident it will attract a wide range of occupiers.”
Gal Nadir, from Zenith Partners, said: “The Apiary fits our vision for office demand in the current market, involving attractive amenities for occupiers and their employees, contemporarily refurbished office environment with ‘plug & play’ spaces and solid environmental credentials.”
::
Kenyon Lane site
Work is under way to transform disused brownfield land in Moston into new affordable and sustainable homes as part of Manchester City Council’s Project 500 initiative.
John Southworth is developing nine properties on Kenyon Lane, comprising two- and three-bedroom homes in partnership with local housing provider, Jigsaw Homes Group, which will manage the homes.
Project 500 aims to build at least 500 affordable homes, and more in future, and is part of a wider housing strategy developed in collaboration with the Manchester Housing Providers Partnership (MHPP).
The goal is to increase the number of affordable homes being built in the city, using publicly-owned brownfield land, to help meet demand for quality affordable homes.
Jigsaw Homes will deliver three Project 500 schemes, including this one in Moston, allocated by Manchester City Council, with rents capped at the Manchester Living Rent.
The development will also support sustainable living, with the homes constructed of timber frame and all with air source heat pumps and solar PV panels.
The £2.4m development which has received grant funding from Homes England and Brownfield Land Release funding (BLRF) from the city council is expected to be completed in February 2026.
Garnet Fazackerley, Operations Director of Development at Jigsaw Homes Group, said: “We have already delivered hundreds of much needed homes to help meet local housing need in and around Manchester.
“This is our first of three developments to start on site as part of Project 500 and we are proud to be delivering more affordable and sustainable housing here, working with our partners John Southworth, Manchester City Council and Homes England.”
Jacqueline Brown, Business Director for John Southworth, said: “This is our seventh Project 500 site resulting in a total of 96 new affordable homes. It’s been a great team effort to get this scheme on site and we are excited to be working with Jigsaw Homes Group.”
Cllr Gavin White, Manchester City Council’s executive member for housing and development, said: “We know there is high demand for quality affordable homes across Manchester and Project 500 is an innovative way of building out smaller, harder to develop sites to deliver the homes our residents need.”
The architect for the scheme is BTP Architects and engineers are AJP Engineers. Whiteley Eaves is acting as Employers Agent and Principal Designer.
::
CGI of Civic interior space
Capital&Centric, the Manchester-based social impact developer behind Wigan’s newest collaborative workspace, has signed up its first occupier, paving the way for more innovative businesses to relocate to the town’s reimagined Civic Centre.
IT software and business services provider, Agilisys, is basing its North West office at Civic. The 4,400 sq ft letting, is nearly half of the second floor space and is a major coup for the developer and the town. The move illustrates how the space is attracting national high growth tech businesses to Wigan as a cost-effective alternative to a city centre base.
Alongside high quality, collaborative workspaces, Civic will also feature a mini-cinema, chill-out lounges and a relaxing roof terrace stacked with lush planting and greenery. A new café bar complete with its own spill-out terrace will also be available for the public to enjoy.
John Moffat, joint managing director at Capital&Centric, said: “Agilisys shows that national businesses no longer head straight to the city centre if they can get the same high quality amenities elsewhere without the hefty price tag.”
Cllr David Molyneux, leader of Wigan Council, said: “Civic is set to be a vibrant, modern, sustainable workplace, bringing this 1970s building in our town centre back to life. This announcement is a real milestone in this development.”
Andrew Mindenhall, Agilisys CEO, said: “We’re very excited to be able to establish our North West hub at Civic. We’re committed to Wigan and the North West and believe this is the perfect location for an innovative, collaborative workspace where businesses can grow and develop the best new technology.”
::
Centenary Court
Six state-of-the-art, highly insulated industrial units are nearing completion at Moss Industrial Estate in Leigh, Greater Manchester, with 50% already pre-let.
The multimillion-pound ‘Grade A’ industrial units, called Centenary Court, total 26,000 sq ft and have been built by GM Property Management.
With flexible layouts to accommodate modern industrial business, the three remaining units range from 3,880 sq ft to 5,000 sq ft and have been built to the highest specification.
As well as being spacious, light and energy efficient, complete with solar panels and electric car charging, all six industrial units have been constructed with high specification steel portal frames and are highly insulated with noise cancelling materials throughout.
One of the three available units is already complete and ready to move into, with the remaining two units expected to complete early in 2025. The high-spec units are expected to bring 37 new jobs to the industrial estate.
Centenary Court is in a prime location, with easy access to key transport links, including the M6 and M62 motorways. The site offers convenience, connectivity and building innovation, and is surrounded by green space with Pennington Flash nature reserve on its doorstep.
Neill Wood, managing director of GM Property Management, said: “These six new units represent the very best of modern industrial units and we are extremely proud of this small but impressive development. With just three units still available, prospective tenants are welcome to come and view the units and have a tour of the site.”
GM Property Management specialises in commercial property management, lettings and refurbishments, offering landlords a full suite of services.
::
Graham Lindsay
Blackpool-based Weru UK, the UK distributor for Weru, a German supplier of windows and doors, is set to benefit from a series of key moves to improve its customer offering and introduce efficiencies into its business in 2025.
Weru UK is making logistical changes to its business model, a result of Weru Germany becoming part of the Danish Dovista Group. This merger brings new opportunities for the firm. In addition to supplying the German Weru ranges, as a new Dovista supply and install partner, it now offers the full Velfac and Rationel brands.
While still produced elsewhere in Europe, Dovista has a very frequent UK shipping schedule, and in most cases, they will ship from factory direct to Weru UK clients, on their bespoke transport. In a phased approach, Weru UK will switch all its orders to this shipping method, negating the need for their large storage capacity at its current Blackpool head office location on Amy Johnson Way.
With the reduced need for warehousing, the business is taking the opportunity to improve efficiencies by relocating its head office and showroom to Amy Johnson House, its new contemporary premises still on Amy Johnson Way which will open to the public in March.
Weru UK is also planning to expand its presence at The National Self Build & Renovation Centre Showroom in Swindon. Moreover, it also plans to reintroduce a prominent presence at regional and UK-wide ideal home- type exhibitions.
Graham Lindsay, Managing Director of Weru UK, said: “We are passionate about maintaining our investment in Blackpool, as our head office location. Our new premises will still retain a contemporary and welcoming showroom, with smaller warehousing facility.
“With the surge in online trading, our business model has changed with over 70% of our nationwide enquiries coming from London and the South East, so our new logistical model makes much more sense commercially for us, as well as streamlining the process for our customers.”
He added: “Additionally, this trend highlighted our requirement to have product display facilities elsewhere in UK, in addition to our North West base in Blackpool. We plan to set up a Southern based Weru UK Sales and Storage Hub, either close to Swindon M4 or the M25.”
::
Travelodge Piccadilly Gardens (pic visitManchester)
According to new data from Savills, North West England saw approximately £82.5m-worth of hotels transacted in 2024, with Manchester accounting for almost £31m of those hotels sold.
The international real estate advisor says that, while the 2024 regional figure is slightly down year-on-year with 2023 seeing £85.6m transacted, appetite from investors across the North West remains strong.
The largest hotel transaction by value was the sale of The Travelodge at Manchester Piccadilly Gardens for circa £24m.
More broadly, Savills says that total UK hotel investment transactions are estimated to have reached £5.75bn in 2024, more than double the volume recorded in 2023 and the highest level of activity in the sector since 2018.
Savills research shows that the resurgence in activity was largely driven by portfolio transactions which accounted for 55% of total investment volumes, equating to £3.14bn, 61% higher than the 10-year average for portfolio volumes.
Hotel investment volumes in the UK’s regions totalled £3.34bn in 2024, representing 58% of total volumes.
This marks a 217% year-on-year increase and is 24% above the 10-year annual average.
Tom Cunningham, Director, Hotel Capital Markets at Savills, said: “The UK’s hotel sector as a whole demonstrated resilience in 2024, with a range of quality assets, and hotels acting as a robust hedge against inflation, they continue to appeal to international investors.
“The market in the North West has seen healthy demand from a variety of different types of buyer, with hotels of all different sizes and types seeing demand, and we predict that activity will continue to be robust in 2025.”
::
CGI of Charter Street scheme
Salford-based builder, Watson, has submitted plans to transform a 1.55-acre site on Charter Street, Accrington, into 40 new homes.
The development represents the latest chapter in the regeneration of this key site, which previously contained railway sidings, an engine shed, and a sports club and was recently acquired from Hyndburn Council.
The proposed development comprises 32 houses and eight cottage flats, all of which will be delivered as affordable homes through partnership with a registered housing provider. The scheme has been carefully designed to complement the surrounding area while maximising the potential of this emerging housing allocation site.
Located off Charter Street, the development will benefit from good transport links and proximity to Accrington town centre. It will also provide adequate parking and attractive landscaping to create a desirable new neighbourhood.
Rob Watson, director at Watson, said: “This planning submission represents an important step forward in bringing new life to this historic site. We have extensive experience in delivering high quality affordable homes across Lancashire and look forward to working with our partners to create a development that meets local housing needs and contributes positively to the area.”
Subject to planning approval, the development will transform a key site in Accrington, providing much needed affordable homes.