Member Article

Work on Liverpool’s Central Village project to start again

Work on a key phase of the £160m Central Village project in Liverpool will resume “within weeks” following the appointment of a new contractor by developer Merepark.

Work on the final phase of regeneration at the Grade II-listed Lewis’s department store building stopped when the main contractor – Merepark Construction – went into voluntary liquidation in June.

Now Mansell, part of the Balfour Beatty group, has been appointed to complete the scheme.

In a statement, Merepark said: “A replacement building contractor for the Lewis’s building has been sourced by the long leaseholder, Regent Capital, and construction on the building is expected to resume in the next few weeks.

“The Lewis’s building is a fantastic offering and despite the delays to construction which have unfortunately been experienced, Lewis’s is,however, still witnessing a strong pipeline of interest from businesses keen to take up units in the building.

“Businesses which signed up to take on units within the building are still going through the legal processes. The outlook is positive and the companies which originally signed up to take on space in the building are still on track to do so.”

Building work on the scheme has been under way for the past two years. When finished, it will comprise 300,000 sq ft of retail and leisure space, 75,000 sq ft of office space and a six-screen Odeon cinema.

The project is 85% complete with the Adagio apart-hotel in the Lewis’s building already open.

The overall developer for Central Village is Central Regeneration, a joint venture between Altrincham-based Merepark and Irish developers Ballymore.

Completion of the final phase is being delivered by Lewis’s Liverpool LLP backed by £37m from Co-operative and Regent. The scheme has also received £4m of European Regional Development funding.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Simon Malia .