Proposed Hotel, Exhibition Hall and Sports Club, Lower Mosley Street

ANOTHER HOTEL FOR MANCHESTER. EXHIBITION HALL AND SPORTS CLUB. MILLION POUND BUILDING SCHEME. Details of a building scheme for Manchester comprehending a large hotel, an exhibition hall larger than Olympia and a sports club, at a cost estimated at over £1,000,000 were disclosed by the Manchester Evening News yesterday. Negotiations in connection with the scheme have proceeded over the last year, and there has been much speculation upon the prospective site. It is now stated that the new buildings will cover an area of approximately 20,000 square yards with a frontage in Lower Mosley Street facing the side of Central Station approach. It is situated between the Concert Inn and Great Bridgewater Street, except that it does not include the Manchester Social Club, the Lower Mosley Street school or the new bus station. Part of the site is at present vacant land, and there is also some old property running down to the canal at the back.

The report also states that the hotel will be an eleven storey building with about five or six hundred bedrooms, spacious lounge, smoke-room, dining room, and the usual accessories. The exhibition hall will have a main entrance in Lower Mosley Street, with exits and goods entrances in the streets at the rear of the hall. The entrance to the sports club will also be in Lower Mosley Street. There will be a dining room and smoke-room, lounge, billiard-room, gymnasium, swimming bath, and racket courts. The whole scheme will be carried out as originally designed, and as described in the Manchester Evening News with one important exception. There will be no underground garage, as the plans for this part of the scheme were not approved. The main feature of the scheme will be a gigantic hall, with a span of 250 feet, so that it will be free from obstruction in the way of pillars.

If there is to be a huge stadium on the lines of the Madison Square Garden, New York, it is significant that Mr C B Cochran, who has been described as the "World’s Greatest Showman" has identified himself with the scheme. During last winter he was in Manchester in connection with a production of his at the Manchester Palace, Mr Cochran became interested in the scheme, and to him the secret of the site was disclosed. Other prominent men are identified with the scheme. With regard to the sports club, originally thought of and discussed shortly before the war, a meeting of the surviving members of the committee and others interested in every form of amateur sport will be convened during the next week or so. The architects for all three schemes, which will be separately managed, are Messrs Charles Swain and Partners, Lloyd’s Bank buildings, Cross Street, Manchester. [Manchester Guardian 18 September 1929 page 13]

Reference           Manchester Guardian 18 September 1929 page 13