You thought it was all over? That the city centre office-to-resi conversion game was played out? And that if anyone was converting anything, it was over-ambitious resi schemes being rethought as offices? Well, think again. Octopus Real Estate has agreed to provide £2.56M to convert the top floors of a listed building on the fringe of the city’s Chinatown.

The refinancing and development facility means the top four floors of the 13.4K SF city block can be converted into a one-bed apartment, nine two-bed apartments and two three-bed apartments. The planning permission also enables planning uplift to be taken into the deal structuring to provide the developer with 60% loan to gross development value.

The site is currently occupied by a partially let five-storey Grade II-listed building with vacant warehouse space on the top three floors. As part of the transaction, commercial leases on the first floor have been surrendered and the ground and basement leases will remain in place.

“We have identified the core cities of the North as locations with significant growth potential and we are fully committed to supporting developers and property investors in these cities,” Octopus Head of Residential Gavin Eustace said.

The deal comes as JLL revealed the spike in demand for city apartments. The consultancy said the inward-migrating demand for Manchester homes rose 117% in the first half of 2019 compared to the same period last year.

In addition to the 117% increase in people moving into apartments, the team has also seen a 103% increase in lets agreed in July 2019, compared to July 2018.