Allied London’s £73 million No.1 Spinningfields building has made its mark on the Manchester skyline with the erection of the first of three tower cranes that will go up on the project before Christmas.

BAM’s construction of the 117 metre tall crane began in the early hours of Saturday morning and by Sunday evening it was complete. The crane will remain in place for 63 weeks and when it is taken down it will have climbed twice to a height of 165 metres, just four metres below Manchester’s tallest landmark, Beetham Tower.

The process drew a crowd of onlookers throughout the day who marvelled at the scale of the operation and in particular the team involved who were working at height.

Tony Grindrod, the construction director for BAM, said:

“This is a big milestone for the project and it’s great that people are so interested in what we’re doing here. Our team did a fantastic job of getting the crane up over the weekend in the heart of the city centre with minimal disruption. Workers from our subcontractor, Select Plant, certainly showed their bravery to people in Manchester while working at such a height, and we would like to reassure people that they are fully trained and extremely well experienced in all the required safety precautions, remaining fully harnessed at all times.”

The scale of Allied London’s commercial office development was made further evident last week, with an unprecedented concrete pour to form the ‘core 1 base’ for the 24-storey structure. The site witnessed 150 wagons arriving and successively pouring over 860 cubic metres during the massive logistics exercise, the equivalent of 2150 tonnes when set.

Tony Grindrod added:

“This may be the biggest single concrete pour BAM has ever done and it forms the base of the Core 1 structure that will support the 23 storey concrete core above along with the 60 concrete piles each passing down 20m into the bedrock below. Over the next few weeks a Slipform rig will be erected on site 26m by 20m in plan that will be used to form the core which is nearly 100m tall. The No1 Spinningfields project will gather pace in the new year when the structural steelwork starts to emerge from the basement and follow the concrete core up the building with a workforce of over 600 expected to be involved in the project at its peak.

“It is great to see that we are on schedule with the construction programme for No.1 Spinningfields, which will be a world-class commercial office building in one of Europe’s most successful regeneration developments. Allied London is delivering what will be the finest and highest specified business environment in Manchester with a rooftop bar, restaurant and terrace, a premium business lounge, innovative amenity and flexible fit-out options.”

Graham Skinner

Allied London’s Development Director

Last month the Chinese President visited the BAM-built Manchester City Football Academy and National Graphene Institute, which won the Major Construction Project of the Year Award at the National Construction Awards.

Video footage of both the concrete pour and the tower crane erection can be viewed on our project Facebook page here.