Plans for £200m Owens Park project in Fallowfield to go before Manchester town hall chiefs
Town hall chiefs will consider plans for a dramatic £200m revamp of Fallowfield’s Owens Park campus this week. The site’s iconic tower – which has been home to generations of undergraduates – is set to be demolished to make way for a new student village.
A planning application, which proposes to house an extra 1,000 students, will go before the planners on Thursday. If it gets the go-ahead, a ‘village green’ will replace the tower and willl be surrounded by swanky student flats and townhouses.
It is hoped the city’s biggest student residential campus will become the ‘jewel in the crown’ of university accommodation. A new student services centre, shops and a doctor’s surgery are planned, as well as lawns with outdoor ‘chaise longues’.
Buildings will be between two and six storeys in height and include accommodation for campus wardens. The student village will boast new kitchens, enhanced student facilities, ‘energy centres’ and car parking.
University bosses intend the transformation to take place in three phases. The first will see empty land to the north of the Armitage sports centre turned into flats. The Oaks and Limes halls would then be demolished and replaced with apartments and houses.
A draft masterplan for Owens Park was agreed by council chief last year after most of the funding was secured from the Abu Dhabi-based Mubadala Development Company, run by Manchester City chairman Khaldoon Al Mubarak…