Step on: Six innovative Manchester construction projects

Artisan skills are restoring this gem of high Victoriana, despite budget and programme challenges

Manchester Town Hall was designed in neo-Gothic style by architect Alfred Waterhouse and completed in 1877, but its refurbishment has seen successive budget hikes and pushed-back completion dates. Originally costed at £324m in 2017 with a completion date in 2024, the latest council update puts the budget for the works on the Grade I-listed building at £525m, with completion expected in spring 2027.

However, behind the headlines are countless stories of specialist heritage restoration and artisanship: extensive stonework repairs, including the repair and reinstallation of the building’s distinctive spire; restoration of multiple mosaic floors; restoration of over 4,000 stained-glass windows; heritage painting work including murals in the Great Hall; repair of the roof, with the replacement of more than 160,000 slate tiles. 

Meanwhile, a new core for passenger lifts and steel staircases had to be cut through the building. And the town hall’s mechanical, electrical and plumbing services have been stripped out to be replaced by modern services over eight levels.

Bovis is the management contractor on the project, overseeing the subcontracts on behalf of Manchester City Council. A 2024 report by the council, outlining reasons for the increases in cost and time, provides some insight into the difficulties of estimating the cost of this type of work. For instance, the stone repair work was split into several lots due to the limited capacity in the market, but that still meant that the largest lot had to go to the contractor “who had priced the work least competitively, and by some margin,” according to the council’s report.

By September 2026, the external works on the building were more visible, as some of the scaffolding and its white wrap were removed. Albert Square, which is also included in the works, and the restored Albert Memorial, have been opened up to the public again.

A private finance model for a sustainability-led regen scheme

While children play in Manchester’s first city centre park to be created in 100 years, Bowmer + Kirkland is busy constructing The Republic, a 21,370 sq m office building by the River Medlock.

The speculative Republic development is part of a 10-hectare regeneration of former industrial land into a new green city district, including two office developments, 1,500 homes and a transport hub, alongside the 2.6-hectare Mayfield Park.  

Driving the regeneration is The Mayfield Partnership, which includes LandsecU+I and Manchester City Council. The developer reworked the original design to improve the green credentials of The Republic, with targets of 600kg CO₂ per m² for embodied carbon (40% lower than typical new-build offices) and a five-star NABERS rating for operational carbon.

Bowmer + Kirkland began construction of The Republic in July 2025, with completion of the 13-storey building due in 2028. The building has a reinforced concrete frame and cores with post-tensioned slabs for its upper floors to reduce the concrete volumes required.

Landsec received planning permission for the first 879 homes, arranged in four buildings, in August 2025.

The goalposts recently moved in Manchester United’s quest for a new home

Plans for a new home for Manchester United moved a step further forward in June 2026 when the club purchased a 10-hectare plot of land from logistics company Indurent. 

Located 350m from the existing Old Trafford Stadium, the site sits between John Gilbert Way, Wharfside Way and Europa Way.

If the project goes ahead, the 100,000-seat stadium will be the UK’s biggest. And it will sit at the heart of a proposed 150-hectare Trafford Wharfside district with plans to develop 15,000 homes in high-density blocks. 

The distinctive concept design for the new stadium by Foster + Partners, with its three 200m-high masts and canopy roof, was unveiled in March 2025. The architect is now working on detailed designs.

It is likely this will be based around extensive use of offsite construction. Foster + Partners has stated that its design will enable prefabricated elements to be transported to site via the Manchester Ship Canal, to reduce congestion on roads and demand for labour on site.

The stadium build cost is estimated at around £2bn, with construction mooted to start in 2031 and finish in time for the 2035 Women’s World Cup.

Famous Owen’s Park tower makes way for more sustainable student living

The redevelopment of the University of Manchester’s Fallowfield Campus will provide accommodation for 3,300 students where three former halls of residence once stood, including the famous Owen’s Park tower. Spread over 29 blocks, seven of which are classed as high-risk buildings (HRB), the scheme will create five residential neighbourhoods.

This is a design build finance operate (DBFO) project with a 50-year timeline. The Viridis consortium, which includes University of Manchester and contractor Graham, is delivering the £530m scheme.

Billed as “the world’s largest single-phase Passivhaus-certified purpose-built student accommodation scheme”, the Fallowfield Campus will use around half the operational energy that conventional student accommodation does, according to Graham. 

Deploying a design-for-manufacturing-and-assembly (DfMA) approach, the project will involve the assembly of over 23,000 offsite components. Among these are over 4,000 precast low-carbon concrete facade panels with reconstituted stone and brick finishes, manufactured by Techcrete.

Graham started on site in late 2025, with Gateway 2 approval for the first two HRBs granted in January 2026 and for the remaining five in September 2026. 

The former Manchester United footballer’s latest development is a mix of new build and refurb

Gary Neville’s Relentless Developments is living up to its name in St Mary’s Parsonage in the Northeast of the city. In late 2025, it added Reedham House to the portfolio of sites it is developing in the area which lies between Bridge Street, Deansgate, The River Irwell and Blackfriars Road.

The Reedham House project will be a mixture of old and new. Planning approval gained by Property Alliance Group (PAG), from whom Relentless acquired the site, sees the construction of a 13-storey, 4,830 sq m office building alongside the renovation of a four-storey, 19th-century former carriage works building on the plot. 

Manchester City Council published a strategic regeneration framework for St Mary’s Parsonage in 2020, outlining plans to bring new life to the area through the creation of energy efficient Grade A office space, while reviving historic buildings and pedestrianising some of the streets. 

Salford University facility’s research programme is helping push local housing towards carbon neutrality

At Energy House Labs, part of Salford University, whole houses are built within buildings – in which the full gamut of the UK’s weather conditions can be replicated – as part of its energy efficiency research programme. Prime minister Andy Burnham visited several times as Mayor of Manchester.

Later this year, the Retrofit Innovation Centre will launch a £8.5m programme of research, running until March 2031. Retrofit is an important theme for the region, as Greater Manchester Combined Authority reckons over 880,000 homes will need some form of upgrade by 2038 to hit the authority’s carbon neutral goal by the same date.

In 2027, Energy House Labs will build two houses at a cost of £1.3m as part of its research: a copy of a 1980s Barratt home, to be built by Barrett Redrow; and a classic 1930s semi, which Bree Construction will build. The facility has other homes on its site including a pre-1919 Victorian House, which it constructed in 2011 and a futuristic house Barratt built four years ago.

The research will look at how the retrofitted houses perform under different environmental conditions, while putting innovations such as smart energy systems through their paces.