Circle Square Manchester


Circle Square is an area of Manchester City Centre on Oxford Road, in North West England. It is a 2.4 million sq ft development consisting of commercial buildings, student residential, private rented residential, retail and leisure space and a large public realm. Circle Square is a joint venture between Vita Group and Bruntwood SciTech. It is estimated to have cost £750 million.

History

Circle Square occupies the former BBC Oxford Road site. The site was acquired by Bruntwood in March 2015 with plans to transform the site into a commercially led mixed-use development scheme. Following approval of the masterplan by Manchester City Council, Vita Group was chosen as joint venture partner to deliver the residential element of the scheme.

Present day

Hatch, a Pop-up retail area is in Circle Square. Opened in March 2018, Hatch is a curated space for independent traders and retailers, offering short term, flexible leases. In June 2019 Hatch expanded from 10 to 30 units. Hatch currently houses over 30 independent businesses.
The Manchester Tech Incubator is in Circle Square.
The housing and accommodation at Circle Square is provided by Vita Group. Vita Student consists of student accommodation and Vita Living provides private rented apartments. The first two Vita Student buildings opened in September 2017 and the third in September 2019. The three buildings icontain 1,100 apartments.

Future developments

The second phase of development will include the completion of the first of the two Vita Living buildings in September 2020, with the final building due for completion in April 2021.
The 2 commercial buildings, No. 1 and No. 2 Circle Square, are scheduled to be completed in September 2020. No.1 Circle Square will stand at 12 storeys high, while No.2 Circle Square will be at 17 storeys.
The commercial buildings' tenants will include Hewlett Packard Enterprise and Mills & Reeve.
The commercial and residential buildings surround what will be ‘Symphony Park’, designed by landscape architects Planit. This is planned to be the size of a football pitch and will include 187 semi-mature trees and over 1,000 plants, flowers and shrubs.
Plans have recently been submitted for the development of a third commercial building, No.3 Circle Square, which will stand at 12 storeys. It is expected that construction work on No.3 Circle Square will begin in March 2020 and complete in April 2022.

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