Plans for new tallest tower said to be ‘the landmark of Manchester’

Property developer Salboy is set to submit plans for a new tower which will be the tallest in the city among a cluster of skyscrapers.

If proposals are approved, the 241m (790ft) high Viadux 2 scheme is expected to take four years to build.

Salboy’s Managing Director, Simon Ismail, has said it is going to be ‘the landmark of Manchester’, the BBC reports.

Once completed, the new skyscraper will overtake Deansgate Square’s South Tower at 201m (695ft) high and dwarf the Beetham Tower at 169 m (554ft) high.

“We purposefully wanted to go for the tallest residential building in Europe… it’s a flagship building,” Mr Ismail told the BBC.

The Viadux 2 tower will hold around 800 apartments, providing homes for residents looking to live in Manchester, where housing is in great demand.

Mr Ismail said much of that demand for homes in the city was driven by ‘postgrads staying on, the largest student population in Europe, and a cost of living that’s half of that in London’.

Salboy says it has already provided about 4,000 homes in Manchester, and as long as there is ‘massive demand for homes, the firm will continue to build, Mr Ismail said.

The developer is also working on St Michael’s Tower with the former Manchester United footballer Gary Neville.

Manchester has seen a huge boom in skyscrapers over the last 10 years, with an ever evolving skyline.

Mr Ismail says he has ‘no idea’ how long the city’s skyscraper boom will continue, but that he never believed it when people had previously claimed ‘the bubble was going to burst’.

Adding: “When you look at what Manchester’s got behind it, it’s got too much backing it up, industrious people and a history of doing things right.”

Subject to approval, Salboy hopes to start work on the tower sometime this year.

Property developer Renaker has built a collection of skyscrapers at Great Jackson Street, along the southern border of the city centre.

The firm has also built towers at Colliers Yard in Salford and has started a scheme to build four skyscrapers at Trinity Islands, by the River Irwell.

Renaker has received more than £500m in loans from the Greater Manchester Housing Investment Fund – which was launched by George Osborne when he was chancellor of the exchequer in 2014.

The funding is loaned to developers by the Greater Manchester Combined Authority (GMCA) and is then paid back. The value of the loans has now reached £942.5m with more than 10,500 new homes being supported from it so far.