A topping out ceremony was held with city dignitaries after construction of the Lime Street development – which includes 28,000sqft of retail and leisure space, an 11-storey 412-bed student block and a 101-room hotel – reached its highest point.
To mark the event, attendees signed a canvas print of the images which will become the façade of the building – a quantum timeline of Lime Street’s illustrious history as portrayed by renowned Liverpool artist Anthony Brown.
The timeline will be carried across a series of panels featuring imagery and text immortalizing local landmarks and traders including the Yankee Bar, the Guinness clock, William Harvey and the Futurist cinema.
The scheme is being developed by Ion, which was also behind the award-winning Broadway Malyan-designed Mann Island scheme on the city’s waterfront, and Associate Director Phil Jervis, a key member of the design project team for Broadway Malyan, said the scheme was an important piece in Liverpool’s ongoing regeneration jigsaw.
He said: “This is an exciting project that is bringing timely and necessary investment to a really important area of the city so it is fantastic to see the strong progress that is being made.
“Lime Street is both a destination in its own right as well as a gateway to the city’s Knowledge Quarter and has an intense energy and character that has been defined by the diversity of its past uses and businesses.
“In recent years Lime Street has lost much of its historic allure and it is our intention to recapture that excitement within the new development with the new façade creating a sense of variety and discovery that expresses the spirit of one of Liverpool’s most famous thoroughfares.”
Coun Ann O’Byrne, Deputy Mayor of Liverpool, added: ‘Lime Street is the first impression of Liverpool for thousands of visitors every day, so it’s great to see this landmark scheme by Ion taking shape and adding much needed vibrancy to this vital corridor.
“Once complete, as well as creating jobs, it will also provide a great foundation for the work the City Council will undertake to remodel the northern end of Lime Street and for the future developments at the southern end connecting to the Knowledge Quarter gateway.”
The main contractor on the scheme, which is set for completion in late 2018, is ISG.
