Interior Manchester Arndale shopping centre with escalator ISG Project
Project

Manchester Arndale Shopping Centre

Transforming retail spaces to create a new casual dining destination, Halle Place
  • Customer
    M&G Real Estate and intu
  • Completion Date
    September 2018
  • Quantity Surveyor
    Currie & Brown
  • Value
    £10.5m
  • Form Of Contract
    Design and Build
  • Project Manager
    Simon King
  • Structural Engineer
    Mott MacDonald
  • Program Duration
    47 weeks
  • Architect
    Chapman Taylor
  • ME Engineer
    Hoare Lea
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Introduction

ISG were appointed by M&G Real Estate and intu to deliver a feature ceiling and reconfiguration of retail spaces to create a new casual dining destination, Halle Place. Offering an exciting mix of food and beverage brands and complementing the centre’s existing world-class line-up of retailers.

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The project

The project covered four floors, as we installed the feature ceiling and mood lighting as well as shaping the mezzanine floor to reflect the new curved design of the building.
The project also included the conversion of 14 retail units into 9 new restaurants and cafés, with seating and a central prosecco bar situated directly below the feature ceiling.
To accommodate the centre’s new tenants, our team also installed a new lift, removed an existing stairway (replacing it with escalators) and implemented sound-proofing up to 60 decibels.

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Challenges

As the team were working in a live environment, works were restricted until after 22:00, with a mass clean-up operation required each morning for the centre to continue trading with minimal impact, enabling the existing businesses to continue to thrive. In addition to restricted timings, the team were only able to disable life-safety systems such as the sprinklers for two hours as the team had to work around services feeding live retail units. ISG also implemented a strict permit to work system and site operatives had to be especially cautious in their approach as, on occasion, we found services where we weren’t expecting to.

The feature ceiling weighed 16 tonnes, and the clients’ tenants continued to be fully operational and open to the public throughout the programme. As such, ISG concealed the scale of the work being carried out each night by implanting hoardings which covered the retail spaces and cordoning off the centre of the square to ensure the works had minimal impact on visitors’ shopping experience.