Why River Street Needs to Happen.

A mature skyline needs equilibrium. Genuine ‘skyscraper cities’ all have two or three genuine ‘monsters’ that tower over the city’s other structures and at the same time balance each other out (see: Chicago’s Willis, Hancock, and Trump International towers). Currently, Manchester has only one dominant skyscraper that sadly still cuts a rather lonely figure at the bottom of Deansgate. Clustering will certainly help Beetham Tower to blend into, rather than dominate, the skyline, but what Ian Simpson’s magnum opus really needs is another genuinely tall structure with which it can share the skies – this is why the planned River Street Tower needs to happen.

The balance of Chicago's skyline. 

Also designed by Ian Simpson Architects, the proposed River Street development (125m) would be Manchester’s second tallest building, just ahead of the 118m CIS Tower. Though River Street would be 44m shorter than Beetham, it would be positioned close enough to Deansgate to complement Manchester’s most dominant tower in a way that Piccadilly’s City Tower and the CIS Building cannot. The sleek and elegant design of River Street will also help to provide Manchester’s skyline with some equilibrium – the city would finally have two genuinely tall neomodern skyscrapers, making Beetham markedly less overbearing. And River Street wouldn’t just rival Beetham in terms of height; the tower would also challenge the city’s other talls aesthetically. River Street would be a glazed structure (see: New Century House), allowing it to reflect light - in the words of its designer, River Street would be “quite dramatic”.

Render of River Street Tower with Beetham in the background.

Some might say that Beetham’s dominance is to be welcomed, and this is in many ways understandable: the tower is now clearly Manchester’s most iconic building and it remains one of the worlds better skyscrapers. But the city can’t continue to ride on the successes of the early-00s – its about time Beetham had some competition. Since Piccadilly Tower (188m) is clearly dead in the water, River Street is the city’s best chance to get another genuinely tall structure. 

But here’s the bad news: the project could be just as dead as Piccadilly Tower. Though the building was approved in October 2012, construction has yet to begin – in fact the existing eyesore of a structure on River Street has yet to be demolished. Strangely, the building was proposed pre-recession so its difficult to determine why progress has been so slow. Perhaps when First Street is complete and ground is broken on Axis Tower, Chelmer Developments will get to work and give Manchester another ‘monster’.