Bringing buildings back to life 

Over the years we have developed an unrivalled expertise in transforming unloved buildings into desirable business locations. This prevents both the use of new resources and the waste of the embedded carbon from the buildings original construction.

Of the 6m sq ft of commercial space that we own, over 75% was constructed between 1960 and 1979. These buildings present particular challenges for energy efficiency, but with expertise and imagination they can be brought up to date, both in environmental performance and in their attractiveness to the market place.

 As part of our EcoCities project with the University of Manchester we are working with sustainable building specialists Arup to investigate how best to manage our buildings in the future and develop a new methodology for retrofitting our existing buildings.

 This explores the cost benefits of the different ways of increasing energy efficiency and reducing carbon emissions, ascertaining which of them can be undertaken at a commercially sustainable cost, particularly those that can be made as part of an ongoing general refurbishment programme.

For this retrofit study we have chosen two example buildings typical of the type of property we own. St. James’, a Grade II listed building on Manchester’s Oxford Street, is one of the largest multi-let buildings in the city, and Portland Tower is a typical 1960’s tower block with all the inherent design and environmental issues that are associated with it. .