London Scottish block set for approval

THIS is the 17-storey office block which looks set to replace the old headquarters of the London Scottish Bank in Mount Street, Manchester.

Titan Investors should next week win permission to bulldoze London Scottish House and replace it with a 175,000 sq ft office block, which towers over the neighbouring grade II-listed Midland Hotel.

Titan is redeveloping a key site which faces Manchester Central but is also close the the new “civic quarter” around the revamped St Peter’s Square.

A council report prepared ahead of next week’s planning meeting said: “A new office building would make a major contribution towards strengthening the commercial positioning of the area and assist in establishing the civic quarter as a high quality place and help to drive forward the next phase of growth in the city centre economy, and therefore promote regeneration.

“The existing office building on the site is outdated, and very much a product of its time. Its floorplate is limited and it is not capable of meeting the long-term requirements of the type of occupiers required to achieve the objective of the regeneration framework.”

London Scottish House was sold to Titan by Dublin-based Walls Developments which bought the site from the now defunct London Scottish Bank in 2007 for £20m.

Walls had intended to embark on a major redevelopment, creating up to 260,000 sq ft of Grade A office space. However, it was hit by the slump in the Irish property market and brought the site to market alongside the National Asset Management Agency – Ireland’s “bad bank” set up to deal with distressed property loans.

The architect is London-based Eric Parry.