Kendals' huge redevelopment was expected to start last year but it hasn't - this is why
03.11.2023 - 06:43
/ manchestereveningnews.co.uk
The huge revamp of the Kendals department store has been hit with delays — meaning its owners now need to ask the council for more time to complete the work.
However, new documents also reveal the project will result in the loss of Mancunian landmarks — and that current tenants, House of Fraser, has benefitted from ‘effectively a rent-free lease’. The project aims to convert the Kendal & Milne department store on Deansgate into a swanky office block, and demolish the adjoining King Street West multi-storey car park to make way for another office block, 14 storeys tall.
Updates on the work have been revealed in a new planning application to the city council, which seeks to ‘allow the development to be phased’. Planning permission was granted in summer 2021, and planning rules dictate that developers must start work on the approved scheme within three years — otherwise, permission lapses.
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In the Kendals case, delays mean that work hasn’t started — nor is it likely to start before June 2024, when that permission expires — as final designs have not yet been finished, which is a process that could take over a year. Owners Investec are therefore seeking to reset the clock with a new bid.
Investec said in a statement to the M.E.N. that it is ‘making progress with the scheme and presently working through some pre-construction matters’, adding: “We hope to provide more information in due course.”
While those issues have been sorted out, House of Fraser has been given ‘effectively a rent-free lease’, according to a covering letter attached to the planning