ANOTHER week, another urban hub springing up. Days after the Green Quarter bizarrely featured as one of the UK’s coolest places to live and, more deservedly, Hatch on Oxford Road won Best Pop-up, Event or Project in the 2018 Manchester Food and Drink Awards, we bring you Kampus Garden.
The developers, CAPITAL&CENTRIC and Henry Boot, predict it will become “Manchester’s ultimate summer hang-out.” So just a few grizzly winter months and pale shoots of sprig to get through.
This lush-looking canalside oasis is the focal point of Kampus, the new £250 million planned neighbourhood currently under construction at Aytoun Street on the former Manchester Met site near The Village. Completion is due in 2020.
We are promised the food and drink offering won’t go down the corporate route. Adam Higgins of Capital & Centric said: “Our site is almost a little forgotten part of the city. It’s so central to the city, right on the doorstep of Piccadilly and The Gay Village (below), but it’s been sat empty for years. By including heaps of communal space and greenery, we want to create a really exciting neighbourhood that captures peoples’ curiosity and draws them in.
“The area around Kampus is known and loved for its character and diversity and we want to embody that. So rather than chain restaurants and bars we’re talking to independent businesses that will create a unique and vibrant destination for residents and visitors.”
We did spot a Refinery bar among the cgi images, which was a little worrying!
There will be a new square off Chorlton Street flanked by shops and cafes; the cobbled Little David Street will also be restored as a shop-lined alley, with outdoor seating; while the Garden (CGI impression above) will feature two floors of independent bars, restaurants and shops will frame the garden.
The Grade II listed Minto & Turner and Minshull House buildings will provide a historic backdrop, while the Bungalow – a salvaged concrete box on stilts overlooking the Rochdale canal – will be a pop-up events space.
Adam added: “This year’s blistering summer has highlighted how little green space there is in the city centre where people can enjoy a coffee, beer or bite to eat. Well we’re righting that wrong. The garden will be lush and overgrown, with loads of spaces to hang out. We want to create a really laid-back space for Manchester that embraces that European culture that the Gay Village has historically nailed.”
How this sits with 533 apartments in two new blocks, two heritage warehouses and the existing brutalist Met tower we shall see. Many existing businesses along Canal Street have expressed trepidation about its effect on the character of their own niche neighbourhood.
