Carillion to build Manchester skyscraper

16/03/04

Carillion has successfully negotiated a contract with the Beetham Organization Limited to construct the tallest residential building in the country. The £52m Beetham Tower, Manchester will stand a huge 48 storeys high, making it the tallest structure outside of London.

Carillion Building MD, Tony Lenehan says, ‘We are delighted to be carrying out this exciting project for Beetham. The building is intended to provide a showpiece hotel in Manchester city centre, and to meet the local needs for exclusive accommodation in the area. Beetham Organization is one of our key customers for whom we have already successfully carried out two projects in Liverpool: the £27m Beetham Landmark hotel and apartments, and a £17m office building for the UK Passport Service.’

The Manchester works involve the design and construction of a hotel complex with the podium areas housing the reception, bars, restaurants, kitchen, ballroom, meeting rooms, office area and plant rooms. Beneath the ground floor slab is a two level underground car park.

The main tower consists of a small leisure centre and hotel bedrooms to level 22. Level 23 consists of a sky bar open to residents and non-residents. Above this is a plant room for the residential complex and from level 25 to level 46 are mixed residential one, two and three-bedroom apartments. Level 47 & 48 will house a double storey penthouse apartment.

The podium structure will be a steel frame with metal deck floors and concrete infills. The tower construction consists of a reinforced concrete structure with the concrete floors being contractor-designed post-tensioned slabs. The external envelope will be a unitised, glazed curtain walling system, which includes louvres on various elevations, ventilation grilles, solar protection film and assorted patterns to the glass finish. At the roof level there is a steel and glazed blade to the South elevation.

Carillion will start on site in April with the 122-week programme giving a completion date of August 2006. The site is located in Deansgate on the corner of Great Bridgewater Street, at the rear of the G-MEX Centre.