Gary Neville has shared his pride at the £400m St Michael’s development in Manchester ahead of its official opening today – and says he wants to see more city centre developments from towers to green spaces to make the area more family-friendly.
BusinessLive was invited to Greater Manchester finance giant Together’s corporate showcase on Tuesday night at Chotto Matte, the rooftop Japanese Peruvian fusion flagship at No 1 St Michael’s.
Guest of honour was Gary Neville, whose company Relentless Developments has led the St Michael’s scheme alongside investment giant KKR and Fred Done’s Salboy.
Neville was being inducted into the Premier League Hall of Fame last night, but stuck to his commitment to be in Manchester with Together and to open the first phase of St Michael’s officially on Wednesday.
The first phase includes nine floors of offices and Chotto Matte, while the second stage – now under construction – will include a 41-storey tower with a five-star hotel.
Gary Neville was quizzed onstage by Chris Baguley from Together, which brought clients and guests to Chotto Matte to celebrate its work with Neville and with Relentless Developments.
Neville said he first “fell in love with property” working on a barn conversion in Bolton, “making all the ridiculous mistakes we all make along the way”.
Where it “got serious”, he said, was when he bought the plot of land opposite Old Trafford that became Hotel Football.
He then began work on what became St Michael’s, while at the same time forging a friendship with legendary Manchester city council chief executive Sir Howard Bernstein that saw him meet once a month to talk development and football.
Neville said Sir Howard impressed on him that doing a flagship city centre development was a true “responsibility”. It’s one the Relentless team took on, and Neville, looking around Chotto Matte, said: “We’re incredibly proud of this.”
He said he was keen to get high-end hospitality venues in the development, including a five-star hotel and branded residences. That led him to move away from pure residential, about which he said: ““My aspiration wasn’t the commercial side (of development). But the more we’ve got into this building, I’ve loved bringing it forward.”
Neville said he was proud of the fact that St Michael’s would bring new life to the “underused and underutilised” Bootle Street and Jackson’s Row, while also creating new connections between Albert Square and Deansgate.
Neville praised the “entrepreneurial” city council, and said he had found it made decisions quickly. As you get older, he said, “you want a quick no. You don’t want a long no.” He added: “It’s hard enough as it is as a developer without wasting time.”
As for future ambitions, Neville said he was only interested in Greater Manchester. “I don’t develop out of this city and I never will,” he smiled.
And he said there was still more to do in Manchester city centre, saying that he wanted it to be home to more families.
He said: “When people say there are too many towers going up… we need to build hundreds of thousands more homes.”
Asked what other changes he would like to see in Manchester, he said he felt Deansgate could have been pedestrianised. He added: “They should have made it a park. They should have made it independent cafes. They should have people spilling out into the streets.”
He said the city centre needed more green spaces, asking: “How do we encourage you families to come into our city?”
And he added: “That for me is our greatest challenge. How do we make it a city that’s welcoming to everyone?”
The event was opened by Mr Baguley, managing director for Corporate at Together. He hailed his company’s £8bn loan book. And he said that his company wanted to “bring that prosperity to cities across the Ƶ” by “working with visionaries like Gary.”
He added: “The north has the talent, it has the visionaries, and it has the ambition to deliver.”
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