It’s rare to see a city centre apartment development offering residents garden space, but that’s what award-winning regeneration company Urban Splash has created at Avro on Great Ancoats Street in Manchester.
Here, the developer has transformed one of Manchester’s last undeveloped Victorian mills, a beautiful, Grade II* Listed brick building which overlooks the Rochdale Canal and was once home to the famous AV Roe aviation company and was the place in which warplanes were built. Famous artist LS Lowry was also the building’s rent collector.
Embracing the building’s original features, whilst taking inspiration from the aesthetics of a spacious Manhattan loft, the 31 homes now created here are some of the biggest on the market, with just a handful of homes remaining – each exceeding 1,000 sq ft of living space.
And while there’s many appealing features inside these homes – brickwork, cast iron columns, beams – there’s an even more enticing prospect as we head into summer – 3,000 sq ft of brand-new residents’ gardens.
The new space is rich in soft and hard landscaping, giving residents an inner-city oasis that’s a stark contrast to bustling Ancoats outside. Anjub Ali is development manager for the building and said: “I am delighted to see our work at Avro now complete. It has been a fascinating project to work on; we’ve unearthed so much industrial heritage and sensitively restored the fabric of the space, without losing any of that history.
“The new gardens are the perfect extension of that, using the red brick exterior of the building to deliver a city-centre oasis at the very heart of Ancoats.
“Featuring plentiful seating areas for socialising or solo relaxation, the garden is both green space and outdoor living area combined. One of the advantages of living within a residential building is the sense of community and at Avro, this is amplified by the use of a communal outdoor space to really draw people together.”
The completion comes as Urban Splash continues its quest to create more green spaces for increasing numbers of people who want to live in the city centre, without compromising on the perks of suburbia. Across the road from Avro at New Islington, the company is creating more family homes with residents’ gardens, the Cotton Field Park and Marina, and plans for another public park underway.
