The new Manchester block set to extend the city's landmark park

A new, nine-storey block is set to extend the city’s newest park and provide more than 100,000 sq ft of offices.

The Poulton, as the building will be known, is earmarked for a site on Baring Street, next to Mayfield Park. The park opened in September 2022, and will form the centrepiece of a new neighbourhood in the area, once complete.

The next phase of the project is to construct offices alongside the park, which will then be incorporated into the green space, and extend it in the process. Planning permission was granted to a similar building back in 2019, but since then architects have gone back to the drawing board and modified the proposed Poulton development.

The second incarnation of The Poulton will be nine storeys high, and 1.84m (6 ft) taller than its predecessor. Inside its walls will be 100,730 sq ft (9,358 sqm) of office space, and 29,311 sq ft (2,723 sqm) of amenities — including retail units, a hospitality venue, or a gym, potentially.

However, the most striking aspect of The Poulton is its promise to extend Mayfield Park — the city’s first for more than a century. It’s a move the developers — called The Mayfield Partnership, a public-private venture involving the council — hope will make the building Manchester’s ‘most desirable office’.

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“The Poulton seeks to maximise the potential of this [location] opportunity by bringing the park and its amenity into the building at ground floor,” a design and access statement online says. “This setting stimulates the office space above and establishes a starting point to make the most desirable office space in Manchester.”

Developers are also keen the building ‘sets the standard’ for the new