Sisk wins second contract for Circle Square, worth £96m

Manchester development now worth almost €270m to Sisk

Sisk: the Irish construction specialist  has contracts for the overall Circle Square project in Manchester, worth a total of £236 million sterling. Photograph:  Cyril Byrne / THE IRISH TIMES
Sisk: the Irish construction specialist has contracts for the overall Circle Square project in Manchester, worth a total of £236 million sterling. Photograph: Cyril Byrne / THE IRISH TIMES

Builder Sisk has won a contract for part of a development in Manchester that brings the value of its involvement in the overall project to almost €270 million.

Sisk said on Tuesday that local property group Bruntwood had selected it to build the first stage of the commercial development on Circle Square in the northern English city.

The deal means that the Irish construction specialist now has contracts for the overall Circle Square project worth a total of £236 million sterling (€269 million).

Sisk valued the commercial development at £96 million. In November, Bruntwood's partner, Select Property Group, chose the Irish player to build its £140 million Circle Square Affinity residential development.

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Circle Square is a 223,000sq m development in Manchester designed to house homes, offices, shops and restaurants along with space for amenities. The work will be done over three phases, two-thirds of which will be complete in four years.

Sisk expects to finish all the work on its share of the project by 2021. The Irish group will employ more than 1,300 people when construction on the developments is at its peak.

Guy Fowler, John Sisk & Son's managing director, UK north and major projects, welcomed the group's latest contract.

“Both projects demonstrate Sisk’s commitment to building a long-term strategic alliance with the city and our clients,” he said.

Ciara Keeling, Bruntwood's director of asset management, said the business was "delighted" to be moving forward with constructing its first two commercial buildings.

Bruntwood owns more than 100 properties worth £1 billion across Manchester, Liverpool, Leeds and Birmingham in England. The company has £1.4 billion in development.

Select Property Group has assets worth £1.6 billion and operations in Britain, including cities such as Manchester and Edinburgh, the Middle East and Australia.

Sisk is one of Ireland's best-known builders with operations here, in Britain and Europe.

The company is leading construction of the new stand at the Curragh Racecourse in Co Kildare, building the Center Parcs Longford forest site, working on Dublin's tallest building at Capital Dock and has just begun work on a project in Grangegorman for Dublin Institute of Technology.

Sisk recently finished restoring London's Royal Academy of Arts, is involved in redeveloping Wembley Park in the British capital and is building an international convention centre at Celtic Manor in Wales. It has a number of large civil engineering projects across Britain.

Barry O'Halloran

Barry O'Halloran

Barry O’Halloran covers energy, construction, insolvency, and gaming and betting, among other areas