Leading Liverpool lawyer Gregory Abrams was a leader in the regeneration of the city’s Mathew Street area and is now urging the city council to kick-start a new era of development. Tony McDonough reports

In a week when Liverpool City Council launched two major ‘placemaking’ initiatives one local lawyer who helped regenerate part of the city centre says “we must get building”.

Gregory Abrams, founder of Gregory Abrams Davidson (GAD), was one of a group of people, including retailer Robert Wade Smith and property professional David Backhouse, who helped create the Cavern Quarter.

Known for being the birthplace of The Beatles the area around Mathew Street had become neglected, like much of the city centre in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

In 1987 he acquired the Mathew Street building that is still the headquarters of GAD and this helped to kick-start the regeneration of the area and saw it become what is now known as the Cavern Quarter.

Taking the lead from the Cavern Quarter, the council started to make similar improvements to other parts of the city centre. Locations such as Bold Street and Hope Street were designated as ‘Gold Zones’.

“The idea of making the city great again became a reality,” said Gregory. “The superlatives are never-ending. All of this timed well with the Capital of Culture bid in 2008.”

However, in recent years the city centre has, says Gregory, “got a bit stuck in the mud once again”. Developers have found it difficult to get schemes off the ground due to slow planning processes and resistance to taller buildings.

In the last year the mood music from the council has shifted and it has adopted a more open approach to new development. This week saw the launch of Imagine Liverpool, a new board of ‘experts’ tasked with driving forward Liverpool’s growth.

In the same week the city council appointed a team of “placemaking experts”, led by LDA Design, to set out how the St George’s Gateway can be regenerated over the coming decade.

Gregory has welcomed these initiatives but insists at some point the talk must be transformed into action. GAD has an active and growing property department and says firms such as his are ready and willing to help make things happen.

He told LBN: “Placemaking has become the buzzword in recent times but it isn’t new. It’s what we did around Mathew Street more than two decades ago.

“Liverpool has seen some excellent residential developments in recent years, particularly towards the Baltic District and in Liverpool Waters. But we need to do more. The lack of new grade A office space in the commercial district, for example, is holding the city back.

“Manchester isn’t racing ahead when it comes to creating new office space. If we want to persuade companies to set up new bases in Liverpool, or even relocate their corporate headquarters here, then we have to provide a pipeline of new office stock.”

Plans for new office buildings at Pall Mall and at Princes Dock in Liverpool Waters have been on the drawing board for several year but have yet to emerge from the ground.

This week Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner spoke at the UKReiiF property and regeneration conference in Leeds and urged the property sector to “build build build”.

“That is the message we need to hammer home in Liverpool,” added Gregory. “Look at the plans proposed by Hugh Frost and Home Bargains founder Tom Morris at what is currently the King Edward Industrial Estate close to the waterfront.

“It is spectacular. 10 residential skyscrapers, a five-star hotel, 1,200 new apartments and new commercial space. One of the towers is planned to exceed 60 storeys, taller than anything ever built in Liverpool.

“That is the kind of ambition the city council needs to welcome and wholeheartedly support. But will it? 60 storeys is something they would have balked at in recent years but now is the opportunity to shift the narrative.

“With the Cavern Quarter we showed what is possible with a bit of will and imagination. What we did there snowballed and I honestly believe it was a major factor in Liverpool securing Capital of Culture status.

“Regeneration has to be continuous. The job is never done. Cities such as Liverpool need to constantly evolve. In the early 2000s we built Liverpool ONE and the Arena and Convention Centre. Both schemes were transformational.

“Angela Rayner is correct. We need to build build build and create a new era of growth and prosperity in Liverpool.”

The post ‘Liverpool must seize the day and get building’ appeared first on Liverpool Business News.