IN Brief:
- Greater Manchester Combined Authority has backed a £50m loan for Salboy’s Viadux phase two.
- The funding is intended to support a 23-storey social rent tower beside the 76-storey Nobu Manchester scheme.
- The decision reflects the growing role of public finance in keeping complex city-centre building schemes viable.
Salboy is set to receive a £50m loan from Greater Manchester Combined Authority to support the second phase of the Viadux development in Manchester city centre.
The funding is expected to help bridge a viability gap on the £360m phase two scheme, which includes the planned 76-storey Nobu Manchester tower and a separate 23-storey affordable housing block. The affordable tower is expected to provide 133 social rent homes, while the main tower is planned to include 452 branded residences, a 160-bedroom hotel, restaurant space, and associated amenities.
Viadux is being developed on a constrained brownfield site above and around former railway infrastructure, adding engineering and logistics complexity to one of Manchester’s most prominent high-rise locations. The first phase has already established the site as part of the city’s expanding vertical residential market, while phase two is intended to add a larger hospitality-led tower alongside dedicated social rented housing.
The loan is expected to be repaid when the main tower completes, with the public funding package targeted at unlocking the affordable housing element and maintaining progress across the wider development. Rising finance costs, construction inflation, and tighter regulatory demands have left more major city-centre schemes dependent on structured public intervention to remain deliverable.
Manchester’s high-rise residential market remains one of the UK’s most active outside London, but the delivery environment has become harder. Tall buildings now face greater scrutiny around fire safety, structural assurance, and Gateway approval processes, while contractors and developers must hold finance, design, and procurement routes together for longer before work can move at full pace.
That compliance timetable now sits alongside funding pressure on high-rise schemes. JRL’s Sparkle Street residential project showed how Gateway 2 sequencing is shaping tall building delivery, and Viadux adds a further layer by pairing high-rise building safety with public loan support and affordable housing obligations.
The affordable housing structure is also notable. A standalone social rent tower beside a premium branded residential and hotel scheme is not a conventional delivery model, but it reflects the pressure on city authorities to secure affordable homes within dense urban regeneration sites rather than relying on later or peripheral contributions.
Contractors and consultants working on schemes of this type face a dense set of interfaces. Residential, hotel, public realm, transport-adjacent structures, high-rise building safety, and affordable housing requirements all need to be coordinated within a constrained site. Programmes carry long delivery horizons, complex logistics, and sustained coordination between funders, city authorities, designers, and specialist subcontractors.
The £50m loan gives the project a clearer route through a difficult viability stage, although construction risks remain tied to programme control, regulatory sequencing, and market conditions. As more major schemes are tested by funding conditions and approval gateways, targeted public finance is likely to remain a feature of urban construction where authorities want affordable housing delivered inside central regeneration areas.
