A Vision For City Revamp - 7 August 2007
On Tuesday August 7, Manor property appeared on the front page of the Hull Daily mail, revealing plans for former Rank Hovis site in a £110m City centre transformation.
Two city centre sites could be transformed under £110m plans unveiled by a local developer. Manor Prooperty Group is proposing an 80m development on the site of former Rank Hovis mill overlooking the River Hull and a 30m facelift for the former Co-op store in Jameson Street.
Developer Philip Akrill is not one for beating about the bush.
"Here's what we said we'd do," he says, sliding a glossy artist's impression of the Queens Court complex across the table, "and here's what we actually delivered."
A photograph of the completed building overlooking Queens Gardens in Hull city centre heads my way.
"Can you spot the difference?" he asks. "Well, I'll tell you the answer - there isn't one."
By way of an introduction to the latest proposals from his company, Manor Property Group, for the city centre, it's an impressive opening.
Mapping out an £80m mixed-use scheme for the Rank Hovis site next to Drypool Bridge and a £30m makeover for the former Co-op store in Jameson Street, he hardly pauses for breath.
"We are putting in a detailed planning application for the mill site backed by a traffic impact assessment and a full environmental study," he said.
"We don't want to waste time with an outline application saying what we might like to do in the far distant future.
"We are ready to go with a detailed scheme, the finance is in place and none of it is grant-funded.
"Hopefully, if the planing councillors like it, we can be on site developing by next year."
While several high-profile development schemes in Hull have taken time to get going in recent years, Mr Akrill is determined his company's latest projects do not suffer a similar fate.
He said: "I see what is happening in other city centres in terms of development because we're involved in several schemes across the country and I'm afraid to say it's still not happening here at anything like the same rate.
"You can measure the economic health of a city centre by the number of cranes and you can count the number of cranes here on one hand."
Based in North Ferriby, he's keen to develop in his own backyard.
"We're working in places such as Leeds, Sheffield, Bradford, Glasgow and Northampton, but I'd much prefer to be working in Hull because it's only 10 minutes down the road," he said.
If Manor's two new schemes secure planning permission, on-site progress is almost guaranteed to be quick.
At the Rank Hovis site, construction work is scheduled to start next July once the current derelict mill buildings have been demolished.
If everything goes according to plan, the whole complex will be completed by 2010.
At the former Co-op, the building could be ready for occupation within 13 months.
Planning councillors have already backed tall buildings elsewhere in the city, similar to that earmarked for the Rank Hovis site, including a proposed 18-storey residential scheme in Bond Street.
And with high-rise industrial buildings already a feature of the area around the River Hull, the new development is not breaking any new planning policy ground in terms of height.
However, planners are likely to keep a close eye on the car parking and traffic circulation issues, particularly the impact on the nearby A63 trunk route through the city centre.
Mr Akrill sees the mix of residential, leisure, retail and community facilities, such as the proposed new medical centre on the Rank site, as being part of an emerging new city centre neighbourhood in and around the River Hull.
He said: "You can't just build flats and expect people to live there with no facilities around them.
"That's why we've got a small convenience store for people. That's why we're talking to the primary care trust about a GP surgery as part of the development."
He says the mainly two-bed apartments will also be "realistically" priced at about £100,000, aiming for young professionals who may not otherwise consider joining the property ladder.
He is also confident operators for both the proposed casino and hotel can be found. While the casino hinges on the outcome of the Government's current rethink over its gambling reforms, talks are already under way with casino companies and hotel chains.
He said: "We are talking to three major hotel operators about an apart-hotel, which is different to either a budget or a four-star hotel.
"At apart-hotels, you can stay for a night or six months in what is the equivalent of a short-term leased apartment. There's been nothing like it in Hull before."
He moves swiftly to the proposed student accommodation featuring 156 shared apartments, each one with four or five bedrooms.
He said: "We are currently doing 6,000 student beds across the country. In most of the cities we are working in, 50 per cent of student accommodation is of this type."
The aim is to attract students in the city centre at Hull College, the University of Lincoln and the University of Hull. All three are just a stone's throw across the other side of the River Hull.
With an already approved student development in nearby Wincolmlee still in the pipeline, Mr Akrill is sure the demand is there.
He also sees the mill site scheme as part of a wider jigsaw of new development being pieced together along the riverfront.
He said: "On the River Hull we are going to be right next to final phases of The Boom development and I'm more than comfortable with that.
"The two schemes will complement each other by effectively redeveloping the whole of the east bank of the river between Drypool Bridge and Myton Bridge."
As for the new-look Co-op, he is equally optimistic about securing users for both the call centre and the new department store.
The former Co-op store in Jameson Street closed its doors to shoppers 25 years ago this week.
Despite briefly reopening as an indoor market, its future has remained uncertain. However, the new facelift plans for the building include reopening the lower three floors as a department store.
In addition, the third and fourth floors of the building - the latter best known as the former Romeo and Juliet's nightspot - are being marketed as a possible call centre.
