The Factory (Manchester)
Former Granada Studios entrance on Water Street, proposed site of venue
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| Location | Former Granada TV Studios Water Street Manchester M60 9EA England |
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| Coordinates | 53°28′40.1844″N 02°15′27.2988″W / 53.477829000°N 2.257583000°WCoordinates: 53°28′40.1844″N 02°15′27.2988″W / 53.477829000°N 2.257583000°W |
| Public transit | Deansgate train station |
| Owner | Manchester Quays Ltd (MQL) |
| Operator |
Manchester International Festival via the project's board |
| Capacity | 7,000 |
| Acreage | 13,000 square meters |
| Construction | |
| Broke ground | March 2017 planned |
| Opened | January 2020 planned |
| Construction cost | £110 million |
| Architect | Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA), lead designer Rem Koolhaas |
| Structural engineer | BuroHappold Engineering also civil engineer services and building services |
| Services engineer | Charcoalblue (theatre) Ove Arup & Partners (acoustic) |
| General contractor | Laing O'Rourke |
| Main contractors | Allied London |
| Tenants | |
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Manchester International Festival on a peppercorn rent of 30 years |
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| Website | |
| mif |
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The Factory is a £110 million theatre and arts venue to be built on the former site of Granada Studios, in the St John's Quarter of Manchester (currently the site of the Starlight Theatre), being developed by Manchester Quays Ltd (MQL), a development partnership between Allied London and Manchester City Council, and is to be the permanent home of the Manchester International Festival. Its name comes from Factory Records, the independent record label founded by the late Tony Wilson.
Initially the Chancellor, George Osborne, announced that the venue would cost £78 million, subsequently the council stated that they had managed to secure a further £32 million from "a variety of sources" but added that no public money would be used. The council said that the venue would "play an integral part in helping Manchester and the north of England provide a genuine cultural counterbalance to London". The government confirmed the £78 million towards the £110 million in November 2015. They also announced that, from 1 April 2018, they will provide Arts Council England (ACE) with an additional £9 million per annum to offer revenue support to Factory.
In July 2016, the council gave further details about the sources of the £110 million capital cost of the building:
Total amount = £110m
The entire space will cover 13,000 square metres and will be flexible enough to accommodate combined audiences of up to 7,000, although it is envisaged that it will operate mainly as a 1,600 seat theatre space plus a 5,000 capacity warehouse space. Plans for the Factory will also align with the adjacent Museum of Science and Industry, which "will become part of the creative public realm, with MSI's creative science ... balancing the creative and cultural production of Factory." The MSI plan to build a new £6 million Special Exhibition Gallery alongside the Factory; the new gallery is set to be complete by 2018.
In the summer of 2015, it was announced that the design and development process would be overseen by a Project Board set up by Manchester City Council with Maria Balshaw appointed the Single Responsible Owner for the project. Funding and project monitoring is the responsibility of ACE, who have agreed to second Simon Mellor, ACE's Executive Director, Arts and Culture, for up to two days a week (to be based in the Manchester project office in Manchester Town Hall). His role will be to support the further development of the business case and to work up the technical brief for the design team. Mellor was previously a General Director at MIF. Other contacts for the project include: Sir Howard Bernstein (the council's Chief Executive), Dave Carty (development manager of the council's City Centre Regeneration) and Pat Bartoli (head of the council's City Centre Regeneration Team).
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