Planners have approved the latest hotel development scheme by footballers Gary Neville and Ryan Giggs. This time the former Manchester United pair want to transform the city’s historic stock exchange into a boutique hotel.
The partnership — which is next month opening Hotel Football next door to the club’s Old Trafford stadium — will turn the Grade II listed building at 4 Norfolk Street into a 35-bedroom hotel and leisure club.
With more than 130-bedrooms, their first venture will also feature a unique rooftop football pitch. It’s not yet known whether the Norfolk Street project will be football themed, but it will include a rooftop terrace. There will also be a restaurant and bars, as well as a gym and business space.
Neville and Giggs bought the 1906-built stock exchange — constructed to replace the city’s former facility on Cross Street — at a knock-down price. It was valued in 2004 at £4.7m. Nine years later, in 2013, the pair paid just £1.5m for it.
In a statement following the approval Manchester City Council said: “We believe this overall proposal brings a historical piece of Manchester back into existence to be experienced and enjoyed inclusively by the public.”
Last autumn the pair unveiled plans to redevelop another historic Manchester site. Jacksons Row Development Company (JRDC), a company owned by Neville and Giggs, along with developer and Burnley FC director Brendan Flood, already owns Bootle Street police station in Liverpool. It is also in the process of acquiring the neighbouring United Reformed Synagogue in Jackson’s Row, the Sir Ralph Abercrombie Pub and a plot of land in between.
Now the city council has confirmed it intends to buy the police station and lease the site back to JRDC so the company can put forward a detailed masterplan for the whole site which is expected to include bars, restaurants and a high-end hotel.
A council report last September stated: “This site has the potential to extend the high quality environment that already characterises the city centre, introduce new residential, leisure and commercial facilities, enhance connectivity (including to Spinningfields) and maximise wider regeneration benefits.
“Its redevelopment needs to be brought forward in a way that complements existing developments in adjacent areas within the city centre, such as Spinningfields, First Street.”
The city authority has openly admitted it wants to bring a five-star hotel to the heart of the city and JRDC claims it already has “a contractual agreement with a major international hotel operation, for a major four and five-star brand that is not currently represented in the city”.
It has also pledged that it has the money to fund all the pre-development reports and planning and will secure funding partners before work starts.
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