City centre street is now millionaires’ row
OFFICES HAVE BEEN TURNED OVER TO RESIDENTIAL DEVELOPMENT TO MEET DEMAND FOR HIGH-END ‘CRASH PADS’ – PUSHING PRICES UP TO HIGHEST LEVEL IN WHOLE CITY
A TREE-LINED city centre street is becoming Manchester’s millionaires’ row.
For years St John Street has been home to professional offices – the smart city centre base of barristers, dentists and doctors.
But now the handsome Georgian properties are being converted back into individual houses, and are fetching Monopoly money prices.
St John Street is the only surviving Georgian terraced street in central Manchester. The city was buzzing back then - thanks to the textile industry and transport links - but there was, as ever, a wealth divide.
While the rich enjoyed a gilded lifestyle of ballrooms and sedan chairs, the struggles and frustrations of the poor would lead to protest, and then tragedy, at Peterloo.
Running off Deansgate, St John Street’s distinctive terraces were built between 1770 and 1850 as homes for professionals and businesspeople on the sunny side of the divide.
Gary Neville, the former Manchester United and England player, TV pundit and property developer, has snapped up two of these buildings, which are in the process of being converted back into luxury homes.
Meanwhile apartments in The Residence, a Grade II listed building at the Deansgate junction, launched this week - half of them have already been reserved, with prices starting at £500,000 for a two-bedroom apartment, and up to £1m plus for the duplex penthouse.
Buyers here are the type who need a second home in town rather than a mortgage. And the combination of deep pockets and demand has pushed values in this part of town up to £515 per sq ft – the highest residential value seen in the city so far – and you can’t even park your car.
“There is an un-met demand for high end properties in the city centre and this is probably the finest address in town,” Anthony Stankard, owner of agency Reside Manchester, said of The Residence. “St John Street is the only tree-lined Georgian street in the city centre and it ends in a park. Despite being minutes from Spinningfields and the bustle of the city it feels very discreet.
“All five of the buyers at The Residence are owner-occupiers, most of them don’t need a mortgage and two will be using them as city centre crash pads as they have a second home out of the city.
“The great attraction of this building is not just the location but that it is exclusive, with only ten apartments in total. “
The flats have been kitted out to the highest spec by luxury end developer, Anthony Stankland, of Reside Manchester Kingsdean, including Gaggenau appliances, Quooker hot water taps, extravagant marbled wet rooms and floors covered in huge ceramic tiles.
Parking will cost buyers a bit extra.
“We have negotiated parking at Great Northern for £1,000 per year,” explained Anthony.
Further down St John Street, one of the terraces, having been sold for £500,000, has already been returned to its former glory in a no expense spared refurbishment.
Not too far along from that the ones owned by Neville are being worked on.
Another is on the market with a price tag of £750,000.
Meanwhile, the building occupying the opposite corner to The Residence, at the junction with Deansgate, is being considered for conversion from offices to residential.
In fact, this whole area around St John’s and into Castlefield is now seeing some of the priciest properties in the city centre.