Manchester University is pressing ahead with plans to sell off the former Umist campus.
Officials say they were left with too many classrooms after the 40,000-student uni was formed by the merger of the University of Manchester and Umist in 2004.
The university is now seeking to close down and sell the former Umist site, admitting it is now ‘less vibrant’ than the main Oxford Road campus.
Its new estates strategy outlines plans to sell the buildings on Upper Brook Street, Sackville Street, and Altrincham Street to private buyers.
Students and staff will move to new lecture halls and laboratories on or near Oxford Road. Most of the Umist buildings date back to the 1950s and 60s and are in a poor condition, the report says.
Some have already been sold to developers, and officials are trying to vacate the entire district.
Six buildings – including the Faraday, Moffat, and Morton tower blocks – have been put on the market.
The Faraday building, currently used by chemistry students, is set to be turned into a 1,900-room student living block. Talks with private developers are now taking place.
More buildings will be put up for sale over the next year.
The report states: “The schools are, in the main, occupying buildings with significant problems in respect of condition, functionality and space.”
It adds: “The gradual move away from the north campus has left residual management problems resulting in that part of the campus feeling less vibrant than those areas south of the Mancunian Way.”
In the southern campus, the 1970s-built Whitworth Park halls of residence will be turned into academic space.
With 40,000 students, Manchester University is the largest higher education institution in Britain after the Open University.
It has already invested £400m on new buildings, including the £65m flagship University Place and a student common room named in memory of former vice-chancellor Alan Gilbert who died last year.
Managers have also spent close to £7m on refurbishing buildings so that they comply with disability access laws,
as well as backing a £12m overhaul of the Whitworth Art Gallery.
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The Sackville Street builing is magnificent - hopefully it will be bought by someone with some imagination and vision. Some of the 60s and 70s buildings are good and eyecatching too, I hope this sale doesn't involve them all being flattened.
I think there's a covenant on the Sackville Street building, which may offer it some protection. However, I really hope that the Reynolds Building is preserved. The entrance hall is spectacular and for that along it should really have listed building status. There's also a mural by Victor Passmore that I hope won't mysteriously "disappear"! We con'thave many examples of that sort of architecture in Britain at all and it's all the more depressing when you consider the tin can monstrosity that now blights Oxford Road, opposite Waterhouse's gothic-style main building.
my sentiments too allotment lad we have lost too many great buildings.what will be the fate of the Godlee observatory which I believe is situated on the roof of the sackville building
Well there's a suprise!
'SHABBY' - a great choice of word that will enable potential buyers to reduce the value of their offers !!
Yet more trouble caused by those soap dodging "students". They are all scum.
If Manchester University is leaving this site then MMU can take it over instead of building a campus in the middle of Hulme. Leaving the green corridor which MMU planned to build on intact. Also refurbishing the Sackville campus will be cheaper and more sustainable than building new.
Patrick Sudlow.
Our-Hulme
Patrick - I totally agree about it been given to MMU as an alternative to the disgraceful plans to build a new campus on Birley Fields in Hulme. It does need a lot of renovation but would still be much cheaper and greener than building a new campus that will bring no benefits to the area.
A little bit of imagination to improve the links to Oxford Road will do it wonders too. It's a beautiful little area and would be a shame for it to go derelict or become more half-empty flats we don't want.
Brilliant idea - wait for it - appartments!
Surely the front half of the Sackville Street building is part of Manchester's glorious heritage of Victorian terracotta architecture and if it isn't listed and protected, then it should be! I was an undergraduate in the building from1954 to 57and we had to put up with the racket from the completion of the rear half of the building which had been started prewar and then stopped for a real national emergency. The rear half hasn't the same architectural merit, but it's not bad and the two halves make an inspiring whole. For goodness sake, don't repeat the errors of the 1970s when marvellous Victorian buildings were replaced by the ugly and transient fashionable buildings of the period.
Whether it's strategically sound to move all of the University so far away from the city centre is open to question, but I have no fundamental objection to an effective change of use - but please don't destroy or l lose our heritage also it too cheaply to insubstantial concerns.
John Thackray
I love Sackville Street Building. It could be made in to residences I guess.. or a hotel maybe. It has two magnificent halls on B and C floors which would be good dining areas.
The building has huge windows and 3 foot thick walls and is extremely inefficient but still is amazing inside and outside.
Currently they are decorating the building.. I guess tarting it up for potential buyers.. or whoever has bought it is spending some money on it. I doubt it will get flattened but it will be hard not to think of it as a great place of engineering education.