News Archive

2024

The story so far: Unite Skelhorne

Our structural engineering team visited the Skelhorne Street project where construction is underway on the new-build student accommodation scheme for Unite Students.

The site is situated in a highly visible and prominent location adjacent to Liverpool’s Lime Street station and will see the redevelopment of the cleared brownfield site, former bus station on Bolton Street, and construction of a new building in line with the ongoing enhancement of the Lime Street area as a gateway to Liverpool.

The U-shaped building ranges between 22 and 19 storeys in height and will see the delivery of some 1085+ bedrooms for students along with space for communal areas, welfare management facilities and ancillary retail space.

Meinhardt worked closely with McAleer & Rushe to overcome challenges and realise the construction of the scheme on this compact site. Meinhardt designed a retaining structure to accommodate the differences in level between Hilbre Street and the site and the primary core was designed to receive a tower crane on top of a 65m high slipformed core freeing up vital space at ground level and finding savings in the programme. Construction began in early 2017 and the reinforced concrete frame is up to level 15 currently with internal fit out in progress at lower levels. The project is to achieve BREAMM excellent rating and is to be completed in July 2019.

Thomas Akrigg