The grand 19th-century buildings of this aparthotel and co-working space reflect the city’s past while offering a vision of future city-centre hotels
Like a swollen river, Manchester city centre is breaching its banks. Property money is flooding in and central Manchester is being redrawn, as unprofitable, arty activity is swept out into Salford. Ancoats, to the east is being reinvented as an (oddly sterile) neighbourhood of indie bars and restaurants and swanky flats, while Oxford Road – a drab student corridor – promises, as the waters recede, to emerge as a green hub of tech-entrepreneurship.
Who benefits from all those cranes on the skyline is a point so moot it will be one for historians to discuss, not travel journalists. But any immediate pluses come with caveats. Juries are out. At street level, this city is as gritty as ever.
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