Fabrica - Great Ancoats Street

Beside the new Ibis Hotel on Great Ancoats Street is Fabrica, an office building with an unusual shape and a striking facade (see below).





Fabrica's website describes it as, " an exciting new office development offering superb new Grade A office accommodation set within an area of significant regeneration in the centre of Manchester."  They add that, " Fabrica is a building of cutting edge and innovative design and features four upper floors each of 5,242 sq ft totalling 20,968 sq ft. This modern office building with a striking appearance and efficient open floor plates provides the perfect office environment. Built to the highest standards complying to BCO Grade A specification with excellent environmental credentials in gaining a BREEAM Excellent accreditation."  It was designed by the practice of 5+ Architects for their client Royal London Asset Management.

Below are more views of the new buildings taken in March of 2013.








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Previous to this development the corner was occupied by a golf retailer "American Golf".  After they left the site, their building was demolished to make way for the redevelopment of this corner.



A review of old maps of the area shows that in the mid 1800s the site was occupied by the Caledon Cotton Mill that extended for some distance along Great Ancoats Street towards Every Street.



By 1888 that building appears to still be in place but by this time it was described as a London Midland & Scottish Railway warehouse storing, according to a plan from that period, biscuits, grain, meat extract and provisions, garden sundries and bottles.  It even featured a rifle range on the 6th floor according to the Goad Map.  It is named on the map as the Ancoats Grain Warehouse.  The association with the railway makes a great deal of sense since at that time there was a large goods railway station just across Great Ancoats Street.

The aerial photograph below shows the mill building still in place in 1946.  The red arrow indicates that old mill building and the blue arrow points towards the goods railway station that is just out of frame.