When the former Dobbins store on Northern Quarter’s Oldham Street burnt down three years ago and replaced with a pop up car park, Mancunians were aghast.
Now a new scheme from a Company, located just round the corner aims to put that injustice to right.
When Spacemen Creative’s co founder Adrian Taylor saw that the site of the building, once home to Manchester’s Premier Fancy Drapery Shop, was cleared within six weeks and turned into yet another carpark, he resolved to do something a little different.
The Company who specialise in designing commercial interiors, plan to use shipping containers to enclose the area and create a unique green space in the Northern Quarter, an area that Adrian says is crying out for somewhere for people to go to relax in an open space.
The project will use freight containers around the perimeters to create a green space, complete with secure bicycle storage and showers, and food and market stores which will stay until future development work gets underway on the site.
Adrian hopes that the concept, supported by City Centre councillor Kevin Peel, will develop across other sites, mentioning in particular the car park that has grown up on the former BBC site on Oxford Road and the area around Port Street.
The idea, he says is that it stays put as long as it is needed.
