BILL GLEESON: Downing plan could prove a tower too far

Dec 5 2007 by Bill Gleeson, Liverpool Daily Post

GEORGE DOWNING thinks big. He has already invested more than £60m in The Capital, the sandy-coloured building that everybody knows as the Royal & SunAlliance building.

The property developer is proposing a new 20-storey tower at the complex that will offer a mix of office, residential and hotel accommodation.

The question has to be whether this is an over-ambitious scheme. It is, after all, to be erected within a stone’s throw of two existing, and largely empty, office towers: Metropolitan House and the newly built 20 Chapel Street. Another 1.5m sq ft of office space is planned for Pall Mall, which is only a few hundred yards away.

As for the city centre residential market, only the most blinkered estate agent would deny that the market is deathly quiet. And I can’t help but notice that Liverpool is hardly stuck for hotels any more.

For these reasons, this scheme may find itself being closely scrutinised when it comes before the planners next year.

But who am I to advise Mr Downing, who has made a fortune from city centre property investment? In the longer term, there is undoubtedly potential. The Liverpool market is still relatively cheap compared to other towns and cities around the country. Vigorous growth will return to the UK property market one day, and when it does those with the grand visions will be the people who profit most.

* EVERTON fans with shares in the club had their annual chance to quiz Bill Kenwright and the rest of the board about the club’s destiny at its annual general meeting last night.

Top of the fans’ agenda was the club’s proposed move to Kirkby.

I have no doubt that both Knowsley council and Tesco will deliver their side of the bargain. But what about Everton? Clearly, the board wants to make the move, but can the club afford it?

While much of the cost of the new stadium is being met by Tesco and Knowsley, Everton will still have to find several tens of millions of pounds.

Let us not forget it was exactly the same with the proposed move to the Kings Dock five years ago. Everton couldn’t find the money then, and the club has yet to show to its fans that it has got its share of the cash this time.

I’m not saying it won’t happen, but Evertonians should be wary. Seeing is believing.

* MONDAY night was a taste of things to come. Two massive events took place in town in the full glare of national publicity.

The city was hardly off the nation’s TV screens that day.

We had the Queen attending the Royal Variety Performance at the Empire Theatre at one end of town, while Mark Wallinger was winning the Turner Prize at Tate Liverpool at the other end.

And while these were, by any standards, big stories for the city, they weren’t as high up the Monday night’s television news lists as another story that the city featured large in.

Schoolteacher Gillian Gibbons’s ordeal in Sudan spawned a lot of reporting from Liverpool. Her former colleagues, pupils and family acquitted themselves admirably in the media spotlight. Gillian, herself, seems a remarkable character who managed to remain cheerful while facing considerable uncertainty about her fate. She appears to have kept her head during a situation that had the potential to become very nasty and was a credit to her home town.

As for Monday night, the arts and the whole Capital of Culture year has the potential to result in many more big news days for the city. Let’s hope that the Liverpool Culture Company’s recent troubles don’t mess things up for us.