Behind-the-scenes building Manchester’s £1 billion premiere area

Most people don’t know St John’s, a Manchester area few have visited for a long time. Although it was home to Granada Studios, there was little reason to visit after ITV and the BBC moved to Salford Quays.

But more than £1bn has been spent to transform the area, and the fruits of that investment are starting to show.

The £280m Aviva Studios opened in 2023. Bars and restaurants like Caravan and Trading Route serve food. People live in a 36-storey ‘co-living’ apartment tower. Big names like Booking.com moved into flagship offices at Enterprise City and Soho House. A hotel will occupy the old Granada Studios building. TV production returned with ABC and Versa Studios.

Allied London, which developed Spinningfields two decades ago, is the firm behind St John’s. CEO Mike Ingall oversaw both projects.

And he’s refreshingly honest about why some people might not know about his billion-pound investment.

“You walk into Spinningfields and go Wow,” said Mike Ingall. “You walk here and go ‘f*** is this it?’,” he said on a recent tour of the area. However, he expects St John’s to start making a name for itself soon.

He continued: “Yes, it is it. But we only have 12,000 people working here [currently]; Booking.com has 2,500 people here.

“We have not told that story yet. The Aviva Studios proper story is only at chapter one, it’s on its introduction of how globally powerful that can be if they make productions that get exported around the world.”

The promotion of St John’s reached a high-point on 26 February 2025, when the Versa television studios were formally opened by Manchester council leader Bev Craig, who declared ‘we have turned this part of the city around’.

In the next few months, Allied London’s project to renovate the Campfield market halls — previously used as the aerospace hall of the Science and Industry Museum — into offices and studios with public spaces, will finish.

Mike believes they will be ‘must see’ buildings which ‘people will just hang around’, much like the Guggenheim in Bilbao.

More is in store for St John’s. LDRS had a behind-the-scenes look to see what’s next.

“There’s the opportunity to create a ribbon”

The main link between Deansgate and St John’s is Quay Street, a frequently snarled-up stretch of the A34.

It shouldn’t be, though, as Grape Street could provide a far more serene route to Manchester’s premiere thoroughfare via St John’s Gardens. But Grape Street is not a welcoming place at the moment, with a mish-mash of building sites nearby.

That will change, according to Jack Ignall, Mike’s son and Allied’s commercial creative executive.

“Restaurants will be coming out here,” he explained on the tour, gesturing to the Bonded Warehouse, which sits on Grape Street. He wants events like ‘markets, wine shows, or flower shows’ to take place, and he ‘really wants to put gardens in’ nearby.

He went on: “There’s not a place to go for a dog walk or a run. There’s the opportunity to create a ribbon down which a walking route or running route can go. I think that’s what people want.

“We all need space to be outside, being next to water. There’s canals but not really rivers. It makes a difference being next to water. We need to unlock that, I’m not sure how.”

There are plans to ‘make something called The Boat Club’ on the canal next to the Irwell, Mike added, which he hopes will be ‘something unique’ like ‘an art gallery’.

“We’ve been waiting for Grape Street to open for various reasons now we are at that point,” continued Mike, meaning soon there will be a calmer route from town to St John’s, which bosses hope will encourage visitors.

“It’s going to be must-see”

However, getting people down to St John’s from Deansgate doesn’t solely rest on Grape Street, as the grade-II listed 1850s Campfield market halls also have a role.

Renovation is set to finish in May, when the Upper Campfield Market will soon be known as ‘Campfield Studios’, and house three studios around a central atrium. The larger Lower market will just be called

Campfield, and will become a 50,000 sq ft ‘flexible workspace’ with a public cafe-bar that will also host events.

“This is the bit Aviva Studios does not have. If you want to come for a date night or a cocktail, it’s going to be must-see,” Mike said.

“There’s so many residents around here, we are restricted with live music. That’s why we are thinking of an opera bar. It’s not going to lift the roof off, but it will be a thing.”

Some public money has gone into this project, with a joint Allied London and Manchester council bid for government levelling up cash centring around ‘industry’, according to Tanya Grady, overseeing the restoration.

That meant Campfield needed ‘to deliver jobs’ so ‘it would be difficult to bring it back online with just food’ use, she went on, admitting a ‘level of [government] money has unlocked the refurbishment of the building’.

“We lost the Granada battle but we are slowly bringing TV back”

Perhaps the truly unique aspect of St John’s is Versa Studios, which ‘brought TV production back to Manchester’, Mike said.

“For 10 years I helped Sir Howard Bernstein to fight to save ITV and BBC from moving out. We lost that battle but we are slowly bringing it back with Versa Studios.”

Versa sits next to the old Granada building, which will become a 160-bedroom hotel with Soho House occupying its top three floors, which is essentially a posh social club.

Versa is thoroughly modern inside, with dressing rooms reminiscent of an IKEA show home. But its real strength is in its studios.

There are nine inside its own building, but they can link up with arts venue Aviva Studios around the corner to record and transmit performances. The cream of the crop has a £2m LED wall is set up for ‘virtual production’, according to boss Edward Harvey.

“A camera is targeting the wall so it’s a parallax effect so it’s what your brain expects to see in real life,” he explained, as a demonstration showed an image of a flat projected on a screen moving in-sync with a camera as an actor sat in a settee.

Productions like this tech as it’s ‘more sustainable’ because they don’t ‘have to fly to locations’, Edward added, as a virtual projection can imitate a foreign landscape. Musical performances and gaming motion capture are also possible in Versa.

Although it only officially launched this month, productions have been here before and the initial signs are good for the studios. Peaky Blinders was filmed here, as was some of the rebooted Bullseye.

The BBC’s Morning Live programme is filmed next door in the ABC building because Beeb bosses ‘wanted to be in the heart of Manchester’, Mike said.

It’s an encouraging sign people will come to Allied London’s developments when they’re accessible and attractive enough.

But bosses recognise St John’s hasn’t made a splash yet, as they were ‘living behind the scenes’, as Mike put it.

The true test if it was £1 billion spent wisely will come now — as they throw open the doors.