The Refinery Union Investment p.PNW

The Refinery closed permanently last year. Credit: Place North West

Aldi plans store in Spinningfields

The rapidly expanding supermarket chain wants to open a shop in the former Refinery unit within the Manchester commercial district. 

Planning consultant Savills has lodged an application on behalf of landlord Union Investment Real Estate to tweak the planning consent for the ground floor unit at the XYZ Building to accommodate Aldi. 

The new Aldi store on Hardman Boulevard would be open from 7am to 11pm from Monday to Saturday and 10am to 6pm on Sundays. 

The Spinningfields store will be Aldi’s third in Manchester city centre. The other two are on Market Street and Urban Exchange. 

The Refinery closed in 2021 after parent company Drake & Morgan struck a CVA that saw another two of its London restaurants close down. 

The Spinningfields restaurant, which opened in 2017, was used as the filming location for the Channel 4 dating show First Dates from 2020 to 2021. 

Occupiers within the offices in the 160,000 sq ft sq ft XYZ include IT security company NCC Group and law firm Shoosmiths.

Union Investment Real Estate bought the building for £85m in 2016.

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How come this Aldi is opened from 7am – 11pm the other Aldi’s around open 8am – 10pm? are they going to make use of the outdoor seating area?

By Anonymous

Should bring some people to a dead part of town

By Cal

From Waitrose to Aldi,how this area has gone down market.

By Anonymous

You should visit spinningfields sometime cal it’s fantastic. About 8,000 people work there and thousands visit every lunchtime, evening and weekend. Can’t imagine how busy it will be when St. John’s and the Factory are up and running. I suspect you’d love it if you ever visited. And as for Aldi……bring it on I say. Fantastic retailer, employer with a great range of produce

By Aldifan

The middle class shop in Aldi now, not as if there was a Fortnum mason here before

By Anonymous

with the huge number of homes being added to the existing ones already in the vicinity this will be much needed. The Aldi format fits easily into medium size urban units and there can be no doubt this will have strong demand. I wonder if this will be an Aldi Local format, such as those found across inner London

By Andrew

The Marks and Spencer there,is too small. This is a good idea.

By Elephant

Should give the Sainsburys around the corner some competition.

By Anonymous

Bye bye M&S and Co-op

By Phi

Good few shops around there now. Still prefer the independents for my lunch time sarnie though .

By Anonymous

How can they open eight hours on Sunday when the others are restricted to six.

By Dave

Should keep it as a bar

By Levelling Up Manager

The Market Street Aldi clearly overtrades, so spreading out some of the demand around will be good. The opening of Lidl on Piccadilly Gardens hasn’t dented the demand. Supermarkets are good footfall generators, so this should support other uses in Spinningfields. This will drag more pedestrians towards St Johns/the Factory which has always felt a bit dead. This will be a good location to support sustainable travel (walking/cycling).

By Welcome News

Anyone know what the progress of this project is?

By Quail

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