Developer acquires listed mill buildings
THE developer behind the £200m Kampus project in Manchester has acquired several mill buildings close to Piccadilly Station and the forthcoming East Village HS2 hub.
Capital&Centric has bought the buildings on Fair Street, Chapeltown Street, Congou Street and Baird Street, totalling about 200,000sq ft.
Some of the mills are linked, forming a courtyard in the middle.
They are partially occupied by a variety of businesses, including artists studios and clothing manufacturers, but large sections of the mills are vacant and falling into disrepair.
The unnamed vendors have owned the complex of buildings since the 1970s. The vendors and Capital&Centric were unrepresented.
The biggest mill is the Grade II-Listed Crusader Works, constructed in around 1830 by Joseph Chessborough Dyer (co founder of the Manchester Guardian Newspaper and the Bank of Manchester).
The mills were initially used to produce machinery for the textile industry. The area around the mills has been identified as the proposed new HS2 Terminal.
Manchester Council’s masterplan shows offices, apartments, hotels and retail surrounding the existing mills. They are the only listed buildings in the area surrounding the HS2 expansion zone.
Adam Higgins of Capital&Centric said: “This is a rare thing to find – beautiful old mills right next to Piccadilly Station in need of a lot of investment to bring them back to their former glory.
“These buildings have evolved for various different uses over the years and we’re delighted to be the current custodians of their future.
“We’re excited by the prospect of HS2 and we wanted to be involved in developing this part of the city.
“We like reusing and repurposing buildings, and opportunities like this don’t come around often. We only had four weeks to buy the building. We don’t have any bank debt which gives us the ability to move quickly, and we’ve got a great team that have been able to achieve that timescale.”
Rob Arnison, a Manchester-based real estate partner at law firm DLA Piper led the transaction for the purchaser.
