Manchester’s building boom is stronger than ever – here’s what we can expect next

A quick glance across Manchester city centre will provide views of cranes, emerging towers, and closed roads for building sites.

It’s a sure sign the city’s building boom is still going strong. A litany of new projects are set to be finished this year — from an expanded Etihad Stadium, new flats in Ancoats and Strangeways, and historic office refurbishments.

Another quick glance at the projects starting work in 2025 suggests you would be able to write something similar in 12 months’ time. But if you took a closer look, you would see a key shift in Manchester’s development.

Away from the city centre, there is now more development going on in the suburbs than in previous years: New flats are coming to Collyhurst. New public squares will open in Withington, and Gorton. Moston will get a revitalised high street, the council says.

That’s why it might be accurate to say Manchester’s development is the most active it’s been since the dawn of the millennium, when the city rebuilt from the 1996 IRA bomb under the stewardship of the late Manchester City Council chief executive Howard Bernstein.

That’s also why we’ve collated an updated list of all the major new projects starting or finishing building work in 2025 below.

These projects are expected to be completed in 2025

Ancoats

Central to Manchester’s evolution over the last two decades has been Ancoats. What was once a mish-mash of unloved textile mills, light industry, and unsightly canals has been transformed into the hyper-hip neighbourhood which is desirable for many.

But the next phase of development is taking a slightly different approach. The unimaginatively-titled ‘Back of Ancoats plan’ is starting to come to fruition, with hundreds of new flats being opened on Rodney Street.

While that sounds similar to previous projects in M4, this time there’s a bigger focus on social housing — with the council-owned ‘This City’ developing 129 homes, with 38 available for ‘Manchester Living Rent’.

Next to this will be a new ‘Ancoats Green’, a public park with a ‘mobility hub’ multi-storey car park next door.

The Etihad

Manchester City’s home ground should get bigger next year, as the club says its redeveloped north stand will open during the 2025/26 season.

The project will add nearly 8,000 seats to the stadium, taking capacity beyond 60,000, and add a new ‘City Square’ fan zone around the stadium for up to 3,000 people. It will also have a museum, offices, and a large hotel.

Collyhurst

Victoria North is a huge programme of work to build 15,000 homes from Angel Meadow in the city centre, up to Collyhurst in north Manchester. Once the two-decades-long scheme is finished, it will add around 35,000 to the city’s population, who will be surrounded by new schools, doctors, and a tram stop.

The project isn’t without controversy, though, especially in Collyhurst. A battle is emerging between developers who are tearing down old council homes — and moving tenants into new properties — and campaigners who say they should regenerate the estate, not start again.

2025 will be the year new arrivals start coming to Collyhurst, as the first of 274 homes will be completed, with 100 of those being available for social rent.

Circle Square, Oxford Road

The former BBC Studios site on Oxford Road was developed as Circle Square — a combination of student flats, offices, and a hub of food and drink outlets — early in the 2020s.

A nightclub where phone cameras can’t be used recently opened there, but that’s not all. Next year, a new building within Circle Square will open, called No. 3.

The £87m project will have 267,000 sq ft of office space, and a roof terrace for staff with city skyline views above its 15th storey.

Former Boddington’s brewery

Plans to build 505 homes across two towers — one 29 storeys-tall, another 12 — on the former Boddington’s Brewery site near Strangeways are expected to complete in August 2025.

Developers Latimer — housing association Clarion’s development arm — say around 300 of these homes will be affordable. Planning documents reveal 137 will be one-bedroom units, 349 will be two-beds, and there will be 19 three-bedroom flats. Additionally, the ground floor will have three commercial units.

Trinity Islands

Developer giant Renaker’s latest project is called Trinity Islands. Made up of two towers, one 60-storeys, another 55, on the banks of the Irwell — the Manchester-Salford border — they will have hundreds of new flats. Renaker says there’s a chance the smaller tower will be finished in the last quarter of 2025, but it also says it could be the first quarter of 2026.

Citylabs 4.0

The Bruntwood SciTech Citylabs campus, centered around the NHS campus on Oxford Road, is set to expand again next year. The third building will open with 125,000 sq ft of space for medical-tech firms.

Citylabs 4.0 will have infrastructure to accommodate containment level 2 (CL2) biology, and chemistry labs, alongside office spaces.

Pall Mall

Manchester’s far-less-well-known Pall Mall is undergoing a big refurbishment which should finish next summer. Once it’s completed, the King Street office block will get some much needed TLC with a refreshed 90,000 sq ft workspace.

The £30m project also sees builders knocking through into next door Pinnacle tower, so staff can move around the combined complex internally. The two buildings will boast a free state-of-the-art gym and changing facilities, independent cafe, contemplation room, lounge and library space, secure EV charging points and a large cycle park.

Withington, Gorton, and Moston Lane

Three high streets are set for a revamp next year. In Withington, Copson Street and the public square outside its library will be permanently pedestrianised, with both set to open in March.

Work should also finish at a similar time in Gorton, where another new public square will be built between the Tesco Extra and market. And north Manchester will not miss out, either.

That’s because Moston Lane is set for a radical overhaul, to be finished in 2025, also featuring a public square.

HOME and Campfield Market

Grade-II listed Lower Campfield market is set to reopen this year as a co-working and events space, having previously hosted the Science and Industry Museum’s air and space hall. It will have a bar open until 11pm.

Although the city has lost a cultural space with the market hall’s conversion away from a museum, it will gain new gallery areas HOME will open a £3.5m set of studios, training spaces, and events spots in the railway arches surrounding its existing… home.

Work is expected to start on these projects in 2025

Sister

Sister, formerly called ID Manchester, is a wholesale redevelopment of the University’s 26-acre former north campus, centred around Sackville Street. Buildings previously used for lectures are going to be turned into office spaces with public amenities, and a multi-storey car park will be demolished for three student towers, according to developers Bruntwood SciTech.

Central Retail Park

Another big site being developed will be the former Central Retail Park, on Great Ancoats Street. Half of the 10.5-acre plot was sold by the council to the Government Property Agency, who will now redevelop it into a Civil Service campus for 7,000 staffers.

There will also be parkland, with council sources suggesting work could start in 2025 if a planning application is approved in time.

Mayfield

The first commercial building will sprout from the ground in the Mayfield area of the city this year. Already home to the city’s newest park, which opened in 2022, a new building called Republic will offer 243,000 sq ft of office space, and extend the park itself.

It’s also understood a public consultation into building new apartments in Mayfield has finished. That means a new planning application is expected to be revealed this year, with developers seeking permission for nearly 900 homes, spanning one, two, and three bedroom flats.