Staff move into £850m city project HQ today

THE nerve centre for what will be one of Europe's biggest city centre redevelopments opens in Liverpool today.

Planners, architects and construction experts will be based in the new office complex in Lord Street to mastermind the construction of the £800m Paradise Street project.

More than 120 staff, employed by Grosvenor, its construction partners Laing O'Rourke and project planners BDP, will be based on the upper three floors of the building.

The ground floor will be a drop-in centre for the public and will include a scale model showing what the project will look like when it is opened in 2008.

It took a team of model builders months to construct.

Visitors will be able to view the new street layout as well as the precise location for new anchor stores John Lewis and Debenhams and the rest of the developments.

Council leader Mike Storey will officially open the centre this morning, after which it will be open to visitors.

Cllr Storey said last night: "This exciting project will transform the centre of Liverpool and restore our city to one of the country's leading shopping and leisure locations.

"Preliminary work has already started in the Paradise Street area. It is hard to believe that just a few years ago we were talking about the project, and now it is under way. It has happened so quickly, thanks to the efforts of Grosvenor, the city council and all of the other partners involved.

"Over the next four years we will watch one of the most stunning city centre developments anywhere in Europe unfold before our eyes. We will have a lot to look forward too. It is great that so many businesses want to move in to share in this renaissance of our city."

Although some work is already under way, the head of Grosvenor, the Duke of Westminster, is to visit the city on Monday to perform a ground-breaking ceremony to officially start the project.

Demolition has started in Hanover Street and around Canning Place and work is continuing on road re-alignments in that area to enable the first new buildings to go up.

New premises for the Friends Meeting House, Herbert of Liverpool and BBC Radio Merseyside will be built on the site of the demolished Kwik Save superstore in Hanover Street, and the Argos store, opened only six years ago, will move to Lord Street. That will enable demolition work to start in Paradise Street.

The project will create 3,300 construction jobs and 4,400 permanent jobs.

larryneild@dailypost.co.uk By Larry Neild, Daily Post

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