A law firm which led a campaign to save its offices from destruction — claiming 30 businesses would be disrupted by the eviction — has been forced to move out of its Salford premises.
Ralli Solicitors was one of a number of legal and financial companies faced with upheaval when Salford City Council issued a compulsory purchase order in 2011 for a large area of land around Chapel Street on which its Ralli Courts offices stand.
The authority took the action to give the site’s developer, the English Cities Fund — a joint venture between Legal & General Property, Muse Developments and the Homes and Communities Agency — the leverage to pull together a £600m regeneration programme for the area.
Ralli Courts, along with the neighbouring City Wharf, will be flattened to make way for One New Bailey, a £51m development that will provide 125,000sq ft of Grade A office space. Being built as part of Salford Central’s New Bailey regeneration scheme, and funded by Legal & General, ECf expects planning permission to be granted by July and site work to commence in September.
New Bailey already includes a £12.5m, 143-bedroom Premier Inn hotel on Irwell Street, which is under construction and due to be handed over this October, and the recently started 615 space multi-storey car park, slated for completion a month later. The One New Bailey office block should accept its first tenants in two years’ time.
Within days of receiving notice of the 2011 compulsory purchase order Ralli Solicitors, which had acted for companies forced to move by the Manchester Olympic Games bid and Tyneside’s Metrolink extension, contacted its fellow occupants. In its letter, it said: “We own property within the affected area and we also rent property in the same area. We are therefore directly and substantially affected by the proposals and determined not to allow the proposals to damage our business and the interests of our employees and the families they support.”
At the end of April, the practice abandoned its fight to save Ralli Courts — built on the site of Salford’s New Bailey prison — and split its 100 staff across two temporary locations. The firm’s corporate team has moved into 2,800sq ft at 64-72 Spring Gardens, Manchester, with the personal injury department going to a 7,800sq ft of office at Jackson House, Sale.
A second law firm, Stephensons, has leased 3,500sq ft at City Wharf and expects to sign for a new office in the area within months. The corporate finance adviser, Zeus Capital, has taken space at 82 King Street and the barristers Exchange Chambers has agreed a lease on 10,000sq ft at 201 Deansgate.
Other businesses based at the building and seeking new premises include Robert Lizar Solicitors, JD Spice Zeb Solicitors, and Giles Insurance Brokers.
