MANCHESTER’S Piccadilly East neighbourhood is set to grow, with Capital&Centric planning to restore a historic warehouse into buzzing new workspaces and their new HQ.
The social mission developers have acquired Chapeltown Warehouse, which adjoins their owner occupier community at Crusader Mill on Chapeltown Street. They plan to transform it into 20,000 sqft of high quality stripped back work space for creative industries – awesome modern spaces that retain the historic charm and original features of the building.
They’re also creating a new Capital&Centric HQ at the warehouse, moving their expanding team to the historic setting.
The work spaces will be split over four floors of the mill, with the plan to turn the ground floor into a café bar and social hub for businesses and residents from the surrounding community. Dating back to the mid-19th Century, the building was previously part of Manchester’s booming textile industry. Its restoration will mark Capital&Centric’s next major investment in the Piccadilly East neighbourhood.
Adam Higgins, co-founder at Capital&Centric, said:
“We were early investors in the Piccadilly East neighbourhood as we knew it could be something special. Years later, it’s still growing in popularity and we’re plotting our next restoration. Chapeltown Warehouse is the missing piece of the puzzle in that block, a rundown former textile mill in need of a decent future.
“To be successful, it’s important that new parts of the city aren’t just full of apartments. We’ve already delivered the Jenga hotel and now we want to add the workplaces and ground floor coffee shop to ensure that Piccadilly East is vibrant and active during the day too. Whilst we’ll keep all of the historic features like the cast iron beams and exposed brickwork, of course we also want to give it the trademark Capital&Centric design edge too.”
The Manchester-based developers have been instrumental in the growth of Piccadilly East. In 2015 they set out to transform a bunch of empty and derelict sites into a vibrant neighbourhood at the heart of the city.
Chapeltown Warehouse will neighbour homeowner communities at the historic Crusader Mill and new-build Phoenix block. The team also recently completed the jenga-inspired Leonardo Hotel, which opened in May, whilst the consented Ferrous will see an additional plot on Chapeltown Street turned into further homes, complete with ground-level shops, pocket parks and The Cabin, a space for community pop-up events.
It’s expected the workspaces will be ready to welcome their first occupiers in 2023.
Capital&Centric are now taking the approach they pioneered in Manchester to other locations. The team are about to start work on the Goods Yard neighbourhood in Stoke-on-Trent – one of the largest awards for a single project from the Government’s Levelling Up Fund – and are well underway transforming Eyewitness Works in Sheffield into apartments, set to be featured in a Channel 4 primetime show next year.