Manchester’s tallest tower gets council green light

Manchester will soon have a new tallest tower after plans for a 76-storey city centre behemoth got the go-ahead in a mammoth planning meeting.

Councillors approved applications for 153 storeys of towers across three buildings in town, including Salboy’s 76-storey Viadux, a 44-storey apartment block on Whitworth Street West, and a 33-storey student tower near First Street.

Viadux 2a is a 246m-tall skyscraper featuring 452 flats and a 160-bedroom Nobu hotel, which is part-owned by actor Robert De Niro. Viadux 2b is a 23-storey block comprising affordable apartments only.

Viadux 2a

“As the location of not just the tallest tower outside London but a large number of high quality affordable homes, Viadux has the potential to become a symbol of this city’s aspirations and confidence in itself,” said Salboy boss Simon Ismail, after getting the thumbs up.

“Viadux now promises to shape not only Manchester’s skyline for years to come, but the city’s sense of identity on the global stage.”

After the meeting, Salboy announced the 246m tower will now be called Nobu Manchester, with the 23-storey block to be renamed in due course.

The Salboy Towers

The Salboy towers will be built next door to the Manchester Central convention centre, which objected to the plans last year. It believed its delivery yard will be reduced by ‘60pc in usable area’, which bosses claimed ‘would mean many large events would be unable to operate due to the increase in turnaround times between events’.

But negotiations between Salboy and Manchester Central smoothed out their differences, meaning the conference hall did not speak against the skyscraper at Thursday’s (April 10th) town hall meeting.

Other worries remained from Historic England, who wrote to the committee to block the plan.

“Their concern is that 76 storeys is too tall for this location and construction would cause harm to some of the city’s most important historic buildings,” said Dave Roscoe, the council’s top planning officer, reading out Historic England’s letter.

Later in the meeting, Mr Roscoe said the authority had to ‘take a more balanced view’ on the potential impact on civic buildings like St Ann’s Church and Manchester Town Hall.

He added: “It’s a high level of impact on highly-graded listed buildings in the city. But everyone agrees that harm will be less than substantial.

“In those circumstances we have to apply planning balance. We have to identify the public benefit of this scheme and [if] they outweigh the level of harm.

“Our advice is we do believe those benefits do outweigh the harm.”

Viadux 2a gets approval

The Viadux plans were approved comfortably by councillors, as was a bid to build a 44-storey tower on Whitworth Street West, opposite Deansgate Locks.

Developer Glenbrook said the £118m skyscraper will ‘push the boundaries of city-centre living’, featuring terracotta-coloured cladding and a series of arches at street level.

But opposition to the application came from neighbours, with one saying ‘Manchester needs to avoid another Night and Day Cafe situation’ amid concerns about the flats’ proximity to music venue Rebellion.

A huge row between the council and Northern Quarter music venue Night & Day Cafe exploded in late 2021 when the authority served a noise abatement notice against the bar, which was established in 1991.

The case rumbled on in the courts for years until a judge dismissed the business’ appeal against the notice in early 2024, but sided with Night & Day on how to remedy the problem.

Rebellion co-owner Alex Kostyakov

Rebellion co-owner Alex Kostyakov told the meeting construction could mean the bar ‘ceases operation’.

“Due to the other construction work on the opposite side it feels like they will need to park [construction vehicles] on Bugle Street. If we cannot park tour buses on Bugle Street we will have to cease operation.”

Mr Roscoe again responded by saying a construction management plan would be implemented so tour buses could still arrive at the venue, and said the council has inserted a condition into the planning permission which meant ‘development cannot take place until everyone is satisfied this scheme can be insulated’ sufficiently, in an effort to prevent neighbours complaining about sound leaking from the venue.

The third high rise to get the green light of the afternoon, a part-12, part-33 storey student block near First Street, also faced opposition.

One resident said the 861-room building will be ‘oppressive to our low-lying residential areas’ in Hulme.

However, the project got unanimous support after its agent told councillors the scheme ‘aligns with the council’s vision for concentrating student accommodation within the Oxford Road corridor’.

A fourth application, to convert an Ancoats MOT garage into a market hall, was also approved.

You can find out more about Viadux 2a by clicking here