For three centuries Liverpool’s business district had an identifiable heart: Castle Street. The town hall and the Bank of England told us that this was the city’s fulcrum of power. You couldn’t ask for anything more definitive in place-making terms.
Today Castle Street is dominated by leisure and residential uses and, whilst they bring a welcome level of animation and buzz to the business district, I’m left asking ‘where is its new heart?’ The planned office extension to St Paul’s Square should answer that, whilst our project at India Buildings will help reinforce the historic core’s importance as 3,000 new staff move in. Provision of flexible office space such as Capital&Centric’s Tempest reflect the more fluid nature of work and lifestyle and I hope we’ll see more such schemes. Living and working in close proximity is more sustainable and extends the ‘hours of animation’, keeping the city vibrant.