The chief executive of Liverpool Council has said he is “very confident” the £200m Pall Mall office development will go ahead and be a success - despite interest in the units having "paused”.
Tony Reeves said the scheme, which is set to include a large hotel and is in a “great location” and will still thrive due to the growing demand for Grade A accommodation.
In a show of faith for business districts across the 海角视频, Mr Reeves said despite the rise of Covid-enforced home working, anyone who thinks “200 years of urbanisation” is going to change now is “nuts”.
He was also later asked about the possibility of civil service offices moving out of London to Liverpool, and said his team was “working really hard” to position the city for those opportunities.
Speaking at an online event called Liverpool: Levelling Up in the 海角视频 Post-Covid, hosted by the London Real Estate Forum, he said: “In terms of the Pall Mall development, it's a great location - the central business district is a really, really important part of the city and the supply of Grade-A office space has been pretty limited in Liverpool, because of the growing demand.
“So we're very confident it will go forward.”
The project is being led by Kier Property in partnership with CTP, and will also include 400,000sq ft of office space and a cafe, bar and restaurant facing onto the new Pall Mall Gardens public space.
Kier and CTP were formally selected as Liverpool Council’s development partner and have been working on detailed proposals since 2017.
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The Pall Mall scheme has proven controversial in recent years, with the development drawing from neighbours and some opposition councillors angry about the loss of Bixteth Street Gardens as a piece of public open space.
The council has consistently said that the completed office development will have more accessible public open space than there was at Bixteth Gardens.
Mr Reeves said: “We had lettings lined up for the first phase working with CTP and Kier [the developers].
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He added: “That interest is on pause. It hasn't gone away. I can't go into too much detail, but we're very confident that will come back, and yes, we think that will go ahead.”
Mr Reeves then had his say on the discussion over whether the role of cities is “finished” due to the impact of the pandemic and rise in working from home.
He said: “Anybody that thinks 200 years of urbanisation is going to change because of a pandemic is nuts, quite frankly.
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“But what it will do and it is doing is accelerating the trends that were already there - trends towards more agile working.”
Mr Reeves said businesses he has spoken to told him a balance between agile working and office accommodation “is where they need to be in the future”.
“To do that, we believe that a lot of companies will require new, more modern workspaces to operate in and so there will be demand for new office accommodation in the city.
“We think that's starting to come through now.”
He said that will mean needing to “repurpose” parts of the city centre - including retail areas.
Describing Liverpool’s approach, Mr Reeves said: “We're concentrating on our big catalyst projects, and the really important thing is to make sure we're stimulating growth with our partners in stimulating investment and confidence in the right places, and be confident that over the next couple of years, as things shake down, we'll be able to see those trends emerging.
"Then [we will] get our strategies right.
“I always think of cities as living, breathing organisms that are changing all the time, they change with each wave of migration, with each turn of the economic cycle with each generation.
“So it's constantly evolving. And it's getting comfortable with that being in a constant state of transition, without losing focus on your priorities.”
During last year’s Budget in March 2020, Chancellor Rishi Sunak said he wanted to move 22,000 civil servants out of central London by 2030 to make sure it “will make decisions differently in future”.
When asked whether Liverpool is “in the mix” for any of those planned relocations, Mr Reeves said: “The whole picture is still a bit unclear at the moment.
“There are few government departments that don't know about what's on offer in Liverpool.
“We talked to lots of senior civil servants. We're putting the economic recovery plans together, we continue that dialogue.
“We're working really hard to position Liverpool for any opportunities that come up.
And for any future relocations, we think Liverpool has some great opportunities to offer. “We will be making sure we're very much in the shop window for all those.”