Cost of Aviva Studios passes £240m
Another £22.2m will be tacked onto the budget this week, which means that the final cost of the 143,000 sq ft Manchester arts venue is comfortably more than double the initial estimate for the project.
Once Aviva Studios is handed over, an estimated £241m will have been spent building it, with £93.3m of that coming directly from Manchester City Council.
The majority – £106m – of the remaining £154m has come from various national pots: £78.1m Treasury funding, £7m Arts Lottery, and £21m via the Kickstart Capital Cultural Recovery Fund administered by Arts Council England.
The remaining £39.3m came from external fundraising.
Just an estimate
Cllr Luthfer Rahman, deputy leader of Manchester City Council, was keen to stress that the £22.2m added to the budget this week is an estimate.
“The final sum required – including a detailed explanation for it and how it will be funded – will be brought to a forthcoming meeting of the council’s executive once it has been confirmed,” he said.
“As with any major construction project, the costs will not be finalised until after completion when the final accounts are agreed. In the meantime, an estimated figure has been included in a routine budget monitoring report about our building and infrastructure projects in the interests of transparency.”
The cost of the scheme rose from £210m to £218.7m in July when Manchester City Council signed off £8.7m of borrowing for the building.
At the time, the city council announced there would be another, larger, cost increase in September, which is the one announced today.
Defence and mitigation
The city council has consistently defended the project and its spiralling budget, claiming the economic and cultural benefits of the venue will far outweigh the cost of construction.
In addition, in June, the city council announced a naming rights deal for the venue with Aviva that could bring in between £25m and £30m over the course of the sponsorship agreement.
Over the existing 30-year lease with Factory International, the authority expects to accrue £80m across various naming rights and sponsorship deals, which could cover the cost of its investment in the scheme.
This figure would fall just short of covering the city council’s investment.
It is estimated that Factory International could generate up to £1.1bn for Manchester’s economy over 10 years and attract up to 850,000 visitors a year.
The venue’s soft launch earlier this year saw an estimated 250,000 people visit for Manchester International Festival. It will open officially in October.
“[Aviva Studios] is a world-class addition to Manchester, which will add to the city’s cultural buzz, attract visitors and help create and support jobs,” said Cllr Rahman.
Five cost rises
The city council’s final – estimated – £20m contribution is the fifth time the budget for the scheme has risen.
The budget for Factory International was set at £110m when plans for the scheme were approved in 2017. This rose to £130m the following year and to £186m in 2020 due to the impact of Covid-19.
Following the budget increase in 2020, the city council’s former leader Sir Richard Leese said the authority could not afford to contribute any more to the project.
An additional £25m was pumped into the project last October, taking the budget to £210m.
Designed by Office for Metropolitan Architecture, founded by Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas, Aviva Studios is being built by contractor Laing O’Rourke.
It’s hard to compare projects of this size but as an example and built during the same economic climate I believe the new Co-op arena is costing £350m….it just happens to dwarf this project by holding 23,500 compared to 5,000. The difference between a private and public sector funded project
By Tomo
On the basis of the 2 visits I made, once I actually found how to access it from Quay St through the ongoing building of flats and offices, many of the 250,000 seemed to be using it as a free crèche. Still, early days and once they actually announce what they will be programming in 2024 we might have a better idea whether what we have is worth the £240m cost or it is a massive white elephant that says more about the hubris of Leese and Osborne. It will at least be a reminder of the idea of the Northern Powerhouse, something that in time few will want to be reminded of I suspect.
By Bewildered Mancunian
My concern is that it is as the King would say its a carbuncle on the bank of the River Irwell and the public realm doesn’t take off. I keep thinking it’s wrapped with white plastic and they are going to rip it off to show a shiny new building.
By Christopher
Yes but still nobody has the faintest idea what its purpose it. Consumption and entertainment are way out of balance and not enough investement in the city’s productive capacity.
By Patrick Symmond
£240m for a pretentious, abstract grey box that has already fallen out of fashion before it has even been opened, I can think of countless REAL arts and cultural projects that could have benefited from the treasury, Arts Council and MCC’s generous funds/loans
By Anonymous
There needs to be a full scale investigation into this shocking lack of governance, management and oversight. The council couldn’t say they weren’t warned. Taipei’s Performing Arts Centre was late and over budget designed by the same architect, Rem Koolhaas… and The State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg was over budget by $68 million, designed by…..you guessed it….. Rem Koolhaas. It’s all a bit late now but it was blindingly predictable.
By Anonymous
Who signed this off in the first instance, surely someone has to be held accountable for such a spend increase? Seems like everyone past and present getting away with gross incompetence!
By Mike
So £240 million for a concrete box with a tin roof (okay standing seam) and stripped back internal finishes! There should be an audit undertaken to identify exactly what amount has been spent on the actual building and what amount has been spent on intangibles such as Preliminaries, Fees, Profit, etc. I would suggest it would be close to 50% across the whole Supply Chain! Disgraceful.
By Stuart
The world’s most expensive cake tin.
By Rye&Eggs
Dystopia portrayed as utopia.
By Heathcote
This building wont age well, the costs just seem to be going up and up
By Jon P
I wonder if OMA are proud of this – the exterior anyway? What’s the relationship to its context? It looks like a 5 year old’s drawing of a space ship, or at absolute best a first year architecture student’s work.. unrefined, clunky :/ let’s hope the scheduling, pricing and internal environment (and therefore cultural legacy) make up for it.
By Anonymous
240 million for another Gmex
By Anonymous
Ok some of us don’t like it and you do wonder who has been steering the ship. It can’t have been the building owner surely. But what is the answer? Down tools and lock the door or complete the project? Fortunately prudent fiscal management over the years mean that the finances at MCC aren’t quite as bad as some others………look at those commonwealth games at Birmingham
By Dystopia my a#%%
Why do people keep trying to make facile cost comparisons to other projects or buildings which are not remotely comparable?
By Anonymous
Urbis #2
By A N Wilson
It’ll get a lot of use though. Looking forward to a visit.
By Anonymous
Having gone way over budget (there is a real story there!) the real challenge now will be to make this cultural facility both a critical and, more importantly, a commercial success thereby ensuring that the public purse (the city’s council tax payers) do not have to bail it out. Lets all circle that wagon in five years time!!
By Anonymous
I was really excited for this but cannot believe how bad it looks in the flesh. It uses really poor quality materials and a cannot fathom how this cost almost a quarter of a BILLION
By Heritage Action
Great building but at great cost to the rest of the north west were arts funding has been stripped out to fund this project. I hope this will be rectified in the future and funding be allocated to the rest of the region to balance the massive funding that has gone into this Manchester scheme
By George
You should try working in it, it’s absolute beggars belief some of the things OMA have done… no toilets next to a 6,000 capacity space only accessed via a stairs and small lift, want a drink?… stairs again…good luck hosting huge events!
By CityCentre
I’m assuming that part of the problem was this was a traditional procurement or cost plus type arrangement whereby most of the risk sat with the client. Open cheque book therefore for LOR.
By oscar
I’ve passed through and around this area several times since the MIF packed up and each and every time I’ve not seen a single soul about the place (regardless of the time of day). The concourse area is about as inviting and exciting as a service yard – the design is as bemusing as the eventual price tag.
By Anonymous
I cycle through this all the time – It’s still being built so it’s full of…builders.
Why would someone say it’s empty when it’s literally a building site?
As a more genuine opinion, they should NOT have built that tower next to it, they should have maximised the green space and riverfront as much as possible. Otherwise the foot/cycle bridge looks pretty fantastic.
By Anonymous
Yeah anonymous 1.52…it’s not open yet.
By Eye roll
Bloody hell, scrolling through these comments had me thinking I’d strayed onto the MEN or Daily Mail website…
By James Kenny
Visited twice, wonderful experience it will be a great success.
By Anonymous
If you track the various initial plans and designs from OMA what we now have is a compromised version of what was proposed. It seems to me that space is the thing that has turned this silk purse into a sow’s ear. In the initial proposals the building was approachable from all directions whereas now it is hemmed in by Apartment and Office blocks. How much of the original Granada Studios site was eventually available to build on? Looking from Trinity Way the building looks nothing like the original concept and again the space from the road to the building looks significantly narrower. Inside, the lobby. and bar area seems massively overly cluttered and the exposed utilities and pillars make this again look as if everything has been squashed into a space much smaller than the original plan. In short it appears to be a massive and unsuccessful compromise between what the original design brief was and what we have. Maybe the 2 main performance spaces are as they were but the rest looks like it has been severely cut back for either space or cost considerations. Or both.
By Bewildered Mancunian
Utter waste of a quarter of a billion pounds. Especially when the arts budgets for decent places outside Manchester will be slashed to cover it.
By Jeff