A key part of Liverpool city centre is set to undergo a major transformation thanks to two new multi-million pound projects.
Work is now underway on one of the two schemes on the corner of Park Lane and Liver Street, where the city centre meets the start of the Baltic Triangle. The four star Dalata Maldron Hotel is in the process of being built on the plot which was previously used as a public car park.
The £37.5m development is a joint venture between Anthony Maxwell-Jones' firm Merseyside Sun Ltd, Aviva, Dalata & McAleer & Rushe and will also see a residential block of 90 apartments built beside it. The 260 bedroom hotel will come equipped with a restaurant, gym and business centre and is expected to open in the final quarter of 2023.
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Developer Elliot Group used to part own the site until it was sold to Mr Maxwell-Jones' investment firm Valorem in 2020. It is the first of two projects set to transform the area, along with the redevelopment of the former Heap's Rice Mill on Beckwith Street.
Concerns have previously been raised about the deteriorating state the Grade II listed mill which has been empty since 2005 - and has had planning permission to be converted into apartments since 2014.
The site was twice owned and sold by the Elliot Group, and is now owned by Mr Maxwell-Jones' firm Quarryman Investments Ltd who are set to carry out the project in a joint venture with Legacie Developments. Previously used by Joseph Heap & Sons Ltd - which once ground rice for Kellogg’s Rice Krispies - it is one of the last surviving warehouse complexes in the area.
Plans for the Beckwith Street site include restoring and repurposing the mill into 123 residential apartments and the creation of three new blocks of ten, eleven and 14 storeys high alongside it, which are set to be turned into residential apartments and an aparthotel.
Mr Maxwell-Jones told the ECHO this week that work is expected to start on the Heap's Rice Mill site this September. He said: "I think Liverpool has had a tough time with all of the political changes around the mayor and planning and the government taking over, so I think it's a massive tick in the box and a vote of confidence in the city that an institution like Aviva have decided to invest in the city."
Mr Maxwell-Jones said the development has been hit by delays in recent years due to the coronavirus pandemic and rising inflation rates. He said: "It's a complicated development taking a derelict listed building and converting it to apartments is a complicated exercise.
"It's very difficult to make the viability work, so just simplistically - the cost of converting that building into residential is very expensive and the values that the residential market command of Liverpool, until recently, haven't justified doing the redevelopment. It's been purely a cost point really."
Advertisements for the development have recently been put up outside the entrance to the mill showing what it could look like once work is completed, with a roof terrace over looking Liverpool Cathedral and the rest of the city's skyline. Mr Maxwell-Jones told the ECHO work on the mill is expected to be finished within 18 months once it gets underway in September, while the wider site including the new apartment blocks should be completed within 36 months.
He added: "I think for that immediate location it's such a central location of Liverpool, it's great to see that it's all coming forward but it has been hard work with the pandemic and then build cost, inflation has been very challenging. It's a great regeneration site."
