Liverpool exchanges contracts for New Chinatown

The city council is on the cusp of taking control of the site of the stalled £200m Great George Street scheme after a period of drawn-out negotiations.

Liverpool City Council’s £10m offer for the site – one of the most high-profile development sites in the city – has been accepted by administrators.

Before the deal can complete, the authority must wait for the outcome of a court hearing to clean the title.

Ascot Group had also been in the running to acquire the plot out of administration and has been battling it out with the city council for more than two years.

Both parties wanted to take control of the scheme and redevelop it; Liverpool City Council being keen to end the scourge of stalled sites across the city, while Ascot owns a chunk of the debt on the high-profile site.

The latest administration report published on Companies House states that both parties were asked to submit best and final offers for the site and that Liverpool won out with a £10m bid.

A spokesperson for Liverpool City Council said: “The acquisition of this key gateway site to Liverpool city centre is still subject to court approval.

“The council will continue to engage with the administrator and is grateful for the support it has received from the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority and the government on this matter.”

Ascot declined to comment.

The background

The £200m New Chinatown was first proposed by North Point Global in 2015. North Point’s plan for the site, located east of the Baltic Triangle, featured 800 homes, a 140-bedroom hotel, and 120,000 sq ft of offices.

The developer was delivering the project through its China Town Development Company SPV, later renamed The Great George Street Project.

North Point’s involvement in the project ended in 2018 when Great George Street Developments took control of the site by acquiring a shareholding in The Great George Street Project.

The most recent iteration of the 8.4-acre scheme was approved in 2020 and proposed the creation of 446 apartments across seven buildings of between two and 18 storeys, as well as a 140-bedroom hotel and more than 100,000 sq ft of offices.

Begbies was appointed as administrator over The Great George Street Project – the company behind that development – in March 2022.

Since then, former North Point directors David Choules, Lee Spencer, and Antonio Garcia Walker have been disqualified from being directors.

Great George Street Developments was dissolved in June 2023.