This is the Piers Gough of CZWG Bling building in Hanover Street and it is worth a visit. The building was called site 9 but when it was finished and the hoarding was taken down and became known as the Bling Building. Apparently Herbert the hairdresser had been collaborating to create the building with the architect and when the building was opened to view if you stand up and look at the cladding the words “bling, bling, bling, bling” have been incorporate there in gold and we are still not quite sure how this happened.
Construction
The build of this project was phenomenal; there will never be a build like it. We set up contracts with Laing O’Rorke, an excellent company. I worked with Laing on Festival Place Basingstoke so knew them well. The team there do as they say and I rarely I compliment contractors because usually they are a nightmare. The contract did cost us a lot of money and Laing O’Rorke was expensive but we got excellent service from them. When realised that Liverpool One was too big for by one contractor we brought in Balfour Beatty, Mansells and Dave McLean and a whole host of other contractors. At one time we had 22 tower cranes on site and these were a testament to how seriously the project was taken by Laing O’Rorke. Each crane was new, and they were brought in from Italy. In the early days Fathers for Justice climbed up the cranes, touched one of the sensors and closed down the crane. A Laing O’Rorke director drove down to Italy to pick up a new sensor as the crane could not run without it. The crane was out of action for 3 days.
Animation
Having built out 42 acres of retail with 100 shops, 30 bars and restaurants, and 3000 car parking spaces, how will people find their way around? And as it is a new scheme, how will you make people come back? The found the best way to let people find their way around was not to change the streets; every single street of Liverpool One is in exactly the same place as the street was before we started the transition process. Hanover Street, Peters Lane, Paradise Street and South John Street are all in the same place. So after the gates closed, and demolition started in 2004, and the hoardings came down in 2008 people knew that although new huge buildings has appeared, people knew the streets and the streetscape.
ASSET - Liverpool-10
But we built 5 districts in Liverpool One. We built one for high street fashion, we built an area for children, we built a foody area, we built a park and family leisure area, we built a leisure/fitness orientated area, and we built residential areas. We tried to make sure that tenants mix worked. A team of 27 worked on leasing and tenant mix making sure that tenant mix was consistent. Therefore we did not roll over if a retailer tried to insist on a particular location. We said no, to fit in with out tenant mix this is where you need to go. The dominant retail areas were around Debenhams and John Lewis. The latter has been in Liverpool for many years and we built them a new John Lewis, the biggest outside London. They act as one anchor and at the other end of the street is Debenhams, the other anchor.
South John Street was not really a street but a tarmac surfaced piece of land running through the edge of the park. We turned it into a very unusual street; it now is an urban street with three layers on it, a very unusual prospect. And right at the very top is the leisure terrace overlooking the park.
Guy Butler 57
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