“My belief never wavers.” Gary Neville, the football star turned property developer, is describing his emotions about St Michael’s, the controversial £200m mixed-use development he dreams of creating in Manchester city centre.
“I’ve obviously been used during my football career to being unpopular at times, and obviously with this scheme, it’s a scheme that everybody seems to have an opinion on.
“It isn’t usual in terms of the coverage that it’s received. It’s been at times ferocious in terms of the criticism of it. And I accept that completely, it’s not a problem. But my belief never wavers.”
He is addressing an audience of aspiring young property entrepreneurs in Manchester Spinningfield’s Tattu bar, but at times he sounds more like he is giving a pep talk to a football team.
“We don’t mind promoting from within because they have the passion, they have the care, they have the loyalty, they have the drive, they have the hunger,” he says of his decision to appoint someone to their first managing director role for his hospitality company.
Neville cites legendary Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson as an influential mentor, alongside his lorry driver father. “Working under Sir Alex Ferguson was a huge influence on all of us at United,” he says. “Be proud to work hard. That was probably 95% of his team talks for 21 years of listening to them.”
He might need a pep talk of his own before he goes into the biggest match of his property career when St Michael’s goes before Manchester City Council’s planning committee later this year. The proposals promise Manchester’s second city centre five-star hotel with 201 beds, 159 “executive level” apartments and 19 storeys of grade A office space with “unrivalled views across Manchester”, all housed across two statement bronze towers.
More than 3,900 people have signed a petition set up by former English Cities Fund chief executive Lesley Chalmers objecting to the development over concerns about its impact on the city’s surrounding heritage assets. More than 4,500 people have signed a petition to save the Abercromby pub.
If you don’t like tall buildings next to historic assets, you’re probably not going to like this development. But if you’ve travelled around the world, and seen them living side by side in harmony, then you’re probably not going to have a problem with it.”
In a damming attack on the scheme last week, Catherine Dewar, Historic England planning director in the North West, said: “A dynamic city like ours needs to fully embrace development but this scheme is not good enough to justify the damage it would cause to the streets around the site and to the setting of the city’s most important buildings and spaces.”
Neville is stoic in his defence of the project, which he originally conceived 10 years ago with his teammate in football and now property, Ryan Giggs.
“I do understand the arguments that have been made, from what could be considered people who have a reason for it, and I listen to those as well.
“We changed the scheme 10 or 15 times during consultation phase due to people making suggestions and you’ll know that because we listen to people. But generally, if you don’t like tall buildings next to historic assets, you’re probably not going to like this development. But if you’ve travelled around the world, and seen them living side by side in harmony then you’re probably not going to have a problem with it.”
A luxury development was always going to achieve some level of criticism, sympathisers would say. Neville, who allowed homeless people to stay in the former Manchester Stock Exchange before construction work began on another project, Hotel Football, says he understands the argument, but pitches the other side.
“I’ve got huge sympathy with the homeless situation, with affordable housing. But anybody who pays attention to that but doesn’t pay attention to the fact that Manchester has not had a luxury development built in 10 years in residential or hotels has also got to look at that side of things as well.”
The scheme is backed by Singapore-based Valencia football club owner Peter Lim’s Rowsley, which owns a 75% stake in the company developing the project, and Chinese state-owned Beijing Construction Engineering Group, which owns a 21% stake. Jackson’s Row Development Company is the lead development manager, made up of Neville, Ryan Giggs and Brendan Flood. Development consultancy Zerum, of which Neville is a director, is the development adviser for the scheme.
It is a partnership with the city council, which will take into the account the international investment it will bring to the city when it goes to planning. “I hear people in these property conferences and I hear politicians say Manchester’s a global city, it welcomes overseas investment, we’re open for business,” Neville says. “And we’ve got overseas investment, we’ve got a step change, we’ve got a risk-taking project. But if it doesn’t succeed I do worry about the consequence, because it will achieve big press on the negative side if it doesn’t succeed.”
I want to try and create a shift in service in Manchester that’s never been delivered before.”
He adds, “I know it’s close to the town hall, but the idea that it’s going to damage the town hall, I mean, who’s going to wake up in 10 years’ time and think, ‘oh, this is ruining my life’? No-one. If I’m thinking about buildings that I can see that are going up around us that have had Historic England objections, are being built with people opening champagne on top of them. Because people have forgotten about it. So I’m hoping in five years’ time people will remember it for the good; and that they’ll ultimately get used to it in the city.”
Neville has a vision. “I want to try and create a shift in service in Manchester that’s never been delivered before.”
Footballers like Neville and Giggs looking to live in the city have previously been restricted to No 1 Deansgate and Beetham Tower in their pursuit of luxury accommodation. Neville wants to change that, and see the return of families to the city. “We’d both bought in No 1 Deansgate, we’d both seen other people buy in Beetham in the edge and see good quality, but what I would call mid to high range. And we wanted to create a level of service that I think that other major international cities have had. And that’s still our ambition today on that site – to deliver something other people aren’t.”
What will happen if St Michael’s gets rejected? Neville says “no-one’s going to keel over” if that happens, and he won’t give up on property any time soon. Projects under way include opening a Mahiki nightclub on the Albert Estate and a university offering sports, business and media degrees, backed by the Manchester United Class of ‘92.
Neville is not new to property. He started his career by building his first house when he was 22, a 12,000 sq ft barn conversion in Bolton, and says he went every single afternoon after finishing football training.
Since then he has experience of development management, contracting and consultancy. His favourite bit of any project is the design process. “When I move in I get a little bit bored and then think about the next project,” he says of his habit of moving house every three years.
Whatever he does next, it is likely to stem from hunger and passion. “You’ll never see me develop an industrial unit in Wigan; sorry….It’s just never going to happen. I might get sent it but I’m never going to look at it because to me it’s not exciting. Lots of people can do that. If I want to do something it’s something that is passionate inside me. That’s my criteria really.”
Gary Neville was speaking at the Young Entrepreneurs in Property Manchester launch.
A day in the life
Gary Neville is up by 5am. He tries to go to the gym but sometimes “fails on that”, he admits. Then he heads into town to work remotely, sometimes at the Lowry Hotel or a restaurant. “I’ll just sit there on my own, get my Ipad out, hopefully somewhere I can connect to the internet. Because the idea of working in an office bores me to death.” He’ll try and leave town by 4pm, work for another hour at home, before switching off at 6pm.
Advice for property entrepreneurs
“Every consultant should want to leave and set up their own business, in my opinion. Every architect should want to be a developer. Every structural engineer that’s working at an intermediate level should want to be a director. And everyone should want to be, sort of higher. And if you haven’t got a pathway in your company, that you can see that pathway goes up to the top, leave, leave them, absolutely leave them.”
On the old school Manchester property world
“I remember three or four of the old orthodox property developers in the city calling me in four or five years ago, putting their arm around me and saying if you want any advice Gary, please come and see me. And I did, and I went and saw them and I asked them questions and I socialised with them at times. But then when I started to do things that mattered a little bit, the phone stopped ringing, the door wasn’t open, I only felt threatened.
“Why feel threatened by competition? There’s enough room for everybody. And my view would be that sort of when Rafael started coming through at United, I didn’t say, ‘I wanna kill him’ in training, I wanted to help him become the best player he possibly could be, and that was the mentality at United where everybody looked after one another.”
St Michael’s
- Two towers rising to 21 storeys and 31 storeys
- 700,000 sq ft
- The highest tower, Number One St Michael’s, will comprise a 201-bedroom, five-star hotel and 159 flats.
- The shorter block, Number Two St Michael’s, will include more than 120,000 sq ft of offices.
- The scheme will also include shops and leisure space, including two new sky bars/restaurants and an entertainment venue.
- The existing Reform Synagogue will be accommodated within the scheme.
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