MMU’s ‘Toast Rack’ sold for £5m
MANCHESTER Metropolitan University’s ‘Toast Rack’ building in Fallowfield has been bought by a private investor for £5m.
The grade II-listed Hollings building on Wilmslow Road was designed by city architect Leonard Cecil Howitt and opened in 1960 for courses in food, clothing, hospitality and tourism.
It became known as the Toast Rack because of a series of concrete loops across the top of the main building.
The buyer is Estrela Properties but it is not registered at Companies House so it is not possible to see who owns it or where it is based.
The campus, which consists of four buildings, covers 3.7 acres and has a gross floor area of 154,000 sq ft. It was sold because MMU has consolidated its operations from seven campuses to two – around Oxford Road and at the new Birley Fields site in Hulme.
DTZ handled the disposal of all the surplus sites. They include Aytoun Street in Manchester centre, which has been sold to a joint venture of Capital and Centric and Henry Boot; Didsbury, which has been bought by developer PJ Livesey; Elizabeth Gaskell in Victoria Park, which has been acquired by Nuffield Health for a £50m hospital; and much of the university’s site at Alsager, Cheshire.
Law firm Mills & Reeve advised MMU on the sale. Associate Jennifer Lewis said: “We are delighted to advise long-standing client MMU on the sale of the iconic ‘toast rack’ site which is part of its strategy to consolidate its operations to the city centre.”
