Ask Restaurants set to open at Lloyds building
THE Italian restaurant chain Ask is preparing to open at the Lloyds Bank building in Manchester’s King Street.
A total of four units, ranging from 700 sq ft to 4,400 sq ft, are available in the building’s basement and ground floor.
TheBusinessDesk.com understands Oxford-based Ask has taken the largest space – the still-functioning banking hall which Lloyds is set to vacate .
A public notice outside the building shows Ask has applied for a liquor and food licence at the premises.
The 43,000 sq ft site was sold for £6m in 2009 to a joint venture between Infinity Asset Management and Manchester-based Vision Developments.
Vision was launched in June 2008 by Irish investor Morgan Leahy and former Ask Developments director Stephen Cliff.
Last year it took a 999-year lease on the Grade II-listed Freemason’s Hall in Manchester John Dalton Street in partnership with Ford Campbell Property Investments.
Several other former banking halls in the area nearby have already been converted into restaurants, including the Lutyens-designed former HSBC bank at the top of King St which reopened as a Jamie’s Italian earlier in the year.
