Bridge link to Manchester’s major development hotspot

Funded by Argent and designed by creators of Gateshead’s Millennium Bridge, award winning Wilkinson Eyre Architects, the footbridge will open in October and by 2008 carry an estimated 4.5 million people per year, animating Piccadilly Place and serving as a gateway to the city centre.

Thirty five metres in length, the steel bridge is 4.5 metres wide, nine metres high and weighs 35 tonnes. It spans London Road between the station and Two Piccadilly Place, which is pre-let to Greater Manchester Public Transport Executive for its 5,110 sq m (55,000 sq ft) headquarters. Support services and construction company Carillion project-managed the entire process, finally bolting the giant structure into place using a team of 20 people.

Said Argent’s deputy chief executive, David Partridge: “The new bridge will bring commuters into the Piccadilly area and out into the surrounding streets, helping to fuel the increasingly thriving economy of this particular part of Manchester and the continued physical regeneration of the area.”

Piccadilly Place will comprise a 285 bed hotel, 167 residential units, 27,870 sq m (300,000 sq ft) of offices, 2,323 sq m (25,000 sq ft) retail/A3 uses, a secure car park with up to 590 spaces all accessible from a new piazza.