Branded as Kings, the eight-acre neighborhood would feature a 70-storey tower as its centrepiece and is the city’s largest development project since Liverpool ONE.
A consultation on the much-talked about redevelopment of what developers Beetham Group and Davos Property call a “forgotten corner Liverpool’s waterfront” has kicked off today ahead of the submission of a hybrid planning application later this year.
Have your say on the proposals
In all, the masterplan features 10 buildings. Consent for the first, a 28-storey residential building, has already been secured.
Six of the proposed buildings at Kings would be residential and would provide a combined 2,750 homes.
The centerpiece tall building, designed by SimpsonHaugh Architects, features a hotel on its lower floors and more than 500 branded residences on the upper levels. It would be the city’s tallest building and one of the tallest in the UK outside the capital.
Across Kings, 400 hotel rooms are planned, as well as 150,000 sq ft of offices closest to the river and 160,000 sq ft for retail, leisure and F&B operators.
The period of public consultation will inform the hybrid application, which will seek detailed consent for layout, site services, and outline consent for each building plot.
SimpsonHaugh is the largest tower’s designer. Credit: Infinite 3D
“Kings is a statement of our confidence in Liverpool, its leadership and its economy,” said Hugh Frost, chairman of Beetham Group, which developed the city’s current tallest building.
“We are backing ourselves in our drive to deliver a step-change for the city’s economy and this consultation is to ask the public for its backing, too.”
Brock Carmichael is the masterplan architect for Kings, with Pegasus Group providing planning, economics, heritage and EIA services and Planit leading on public realm design.
“This is a key moment in the shaping of our final proposals,” said Chris Bolland, managing partner at Brock Carmichael.
“An awful lot of hard work has gone into our designs, taking into consideration everything from heritage and permeability to layout, massing and scale. The council has been a key partner and offered a robust challenge which has helped us deliver a very strong set of proposals. Now we need to hear what the people of Liverpool and Wirral think.”
The JV between Davos, the property arm of TJ Morris’s billionaire owner Tom Morris, and Beetham, is actively seeking investment for the project, which would cost £1.2bn to construct.
The partners want to bring in a build-to-rent forward-funding partner, a branded residences partner, a hotel operator, and attract either a major occupier or institutional investor to forward-fund the office element.