New Century Hall is a Grade II Listed Building in Manchester. Built in 1963 as an extension of the 14-storey New Century Hall office block, it was one of the first in the country to feature an external anodised aluminium frame superstructure with opaque glass-panel cladding. Once built, the venue included a sprung dance floor and 60’s disco ceiling and saw performers such as The Bee Gees and Jimi Hendrix. The Hall was once a staple on the historic Manchester music scene, and our construction work as part of its restoration needed to be sensitive to that.

The historic building restoration brief was to bring the iconic 60’s Grade II Listed Building up to modern standards while retaining important heritage features to form a new social hub. The glazed external walling and internal timber panelling were elements of interest that were vital to retain alongside the maximised acoustic properties, two large, sculpted panels in the music hall and the concrete sculptural screen in the entrance area that were enhanced and restored.

The project was completed with our specialised heritage restoration team and resulted in New Century Hall being brought to modern usage standards while retaining and restoring original features.

Our heritage restorations are award-winning, the Hanover House heritage construction project on Corporation Street in Manchester was a landmark project. Hanover is the earliest surviving commercial warehouse built by the Co-operative Wholesale Society’s in-house architecture. Their name is still proudly displayed on the facade of the building as a reminder.

The Co-operative Wholesale Society was started in Manchester by the Rochdale Pioneers Society, and Block E of Hanover was built in 1903-05. It was used as a warehouse and showroom for wholesale and retail units until the late 1960s and then lay unoccupied for decades. Hanover House was completed in 1909, purpose-built for administrative offices and a meeting hall for the ever-growing Co-operative group, and it remained their offices until 2013.

The 8-storey building was stripped back, revealing scores of heritage features which were carefully restored or replaced like-for-like during the heritage restoration project. This included a new roof installation with a mezzanine level to create a bright and versatile space at the top of the building. New internal structures opened up a huge internal atrium with a contemporary lift and stairs to link the different workspaces. The £35m rebuild and heritage refurbishment has resulted in the incredible rebirth of a truly stunning building, which had lain empty and partly derelict for too long.

The heritage restoration project at Hanover house won the following awards:

2019 RICS North West Awards – Building Conservation Project of the Year
2019 Insider Property Awards – Commercial Development of the Year
2019 The Institution of Structural Engineers, North West Awards – Most Sustainable Project
2019 British Council for Offices Awards – Refurbished / Recycled Workplace: North
2019 British Council for Offices Awards – Refurbished / Recycled Workplace: National

Bringing historic buildings that have fallen into disuse is part of the joy of heritage restoration projects. Crosshalls Building was a technically challenging three-phase scheme to bring back to life three buildings. Vita Students now offers 357 high specification rooms in the Grade II Listed Chapel, the 1878 Crosshills and the 1960’s Tinglings offices, all on a busy street in Liverpool.

The former chapel, The Victoria Chapel, was built in 1880 and was used for forty years before being sold to Liverpool Corporation and converted for use as a dedicated juvenile court. The building remained in this use until the 1970s and was left empty until Vita Student purchased it in 2012. The chapel’s interior was no longer fit for purpose, but during the heritage restoration and refurbishment project it was redeveloped, with the original facade remaining intact.

For the Crosshills Building, a complete internal structural demolition was carried out. The external facade was refurbished and retained by a Structural Scaffold System in keeping with the original structure. The heritage refurbishment was carried out to a high standard, and the first students moved in ready for term in September 2013.

This historic building restoration and refurbishment was one of the most complex in Russell WBHO’s history bringing back three buildings from near dereliction to create high-quality accommodation within one of the city’s most important conservation areas.

You can see more Russell WBHO heritage restoration and refurbishment projects in detail below.