BY JOVE have we got plenty to chew over as MIPIM, an annual international property convention in which suits gather in Cannes to broker billion-pound deals, quaff bubbles and fall off yachts, draws to a close.
Oast House was only ever temporary, only ever a pop-up
We’ve seen plans for a ‘Northern Powerhouse Rail Network’, a revised Tetris-like ‘Central Village' at St John’s and whispers of a new mysterious ‘Arc’ project, which aims to create a new route of 'experience and culture' through central Manchester, bypassing the city's Piccadilly Gardens shame whilst taking in some of our more exciting and sightly developments, such as London Road Fire Station, Kampus and HOME.
As usual, the majority of interest in Manchester’s MIPIM campaign span around developer Allied London and its chief Mike Ingall, who, during one of multiple MIPIM appearances, unveiled something that particularly caught our attention... probably because it involved a boozer.
Half way through his Thursday morning session, Ingall expressed a desire to ‘radically change’ the public realm of Spinningfields, including provisional plans to replace The Oast House with a hyper-modern Levitt Bernstein-designed building named ‘The Skirt’ – due to its undulating outer façade revealing life beneath, we presume.
“Oast House was only ever temporary, only ever a pop-up,” Ingall told the gathering. “This is a potential leisure building built for restaurants, bars and potentially a cinema, while opening up and keeping the courtyard.”
“It’s a work in progress,” he continued, “but shows you how we think.”
But worry not beer-swillers. Nothing has as yet been confirmed, while Ingall himself described the plans as ‘playful’. Though it’s not the first time the Oast House plot has been the subject of a new scheme. In 2014 Allied London appointed CGL Architects to design a new 6000 sq m mixed-use leisure and hotel building for the site.
This is only a feasibility study, yes, but the intention to replace Spinningfields' beer-lover's bolthole and reimagine the Avenue Courtyard is clear to see (there's always The Dockyard though eh?).
A spokesperson for Oast House operators New World Trade Company said: "We understand that the plans for The Oast House and Courtyard space are currently in their infancy and very much at the ideas stage. We are of course in discussions with Allied London on this very exciting development."
Elsewhere, Ingall also discussed plans to construct 'the most sustainable building in the country' with a new Sheppard Robson-designed timber restaurant, leisure and garden' building in Hardman Square on the site of The Lawns.
You can catch up on the Manchester at MIPIM sessions here.
Could the beloved Oast House be replaced...
...by The Skirt?Powered by 
