Green light for three major Manchester projects

Manchester City Council has nodded through three major schemes that will fuel the city’s construction boom.

The mix of projects includes a £75m Nuffield hospital next to the Manchester Royal Infirmary, the £60m Graphene Engineering Innovation Centre for the city’s university and a new hotel and casino.

Nuffield Health has already completed some demolition work  at Manchester Metropolitan University’s former Elizabeth Gaskell campus site where the private hospital is to be built.

It will comprise 30 consultation rooms, 60 patient en-suite bedrooms, eight critical care beds, six operating theatres and a rehabilitation gym.

The Council also approved plans for the University of Manchester’s £60m Graphene Engineering Innovation Centre, which will develop graphene products, components and systems.

Balfour Beatty, Laing O’Rourke and Sir Robert McAlpine are understood to be among the bidders for the building job with a contract due to be selected in March.

Along with the £61m National Graphene Institute, which opened in 2015, and the £235m Sir Henry Royce Institute for Materials Research and Innovation, the GEIC will be crucial in maintaining the UK’s leading position in graphene and other 2-D materials research.

Developer Portland Street Property also got the go-ahead to refurbish and extend the 13-storey 55 Portland Street office building.

The former CIS tower once occupied by Co-operative Insurance Society will be converted into a 14-storey office building while a 10-floor 183-bedroom hotel with a casino is built alongside as part of the scheme.

Ref: Construction Enquirer
15/02/16