RIVERSIDE
RESURGENCE
The skyline in Durham is changing at speed.
Wear Business co-editor Colin Young looks at
the huge developments being made in the city…
Regulars and visitors to Durham
could not have failed to notice
that, while the rest of the world
was locked down, significant
changes to the city skyline were taking place.
It raised a few eyebrows as well as tonnes of
steel.
It is all thanks to stringent safety and
social distancing measures and one of the
region’s largest and most sophisticated civil
engineering feats.
As the £120m Milburngate development
on Durham's riverside takes shape, so the
giant cranes are in situ, towering over vast
steel structures, covered by huge Tolentbranded
protective screening.
Measuring 236 metres – the equivalent of
nearly three football pitches – construction
of the three-storey retaining wall has taken
ten months.
And using approximately 20,000m 3 of
concrete, it required the use of one of the
largest piling rigs in the UK.
The completion of the wall was a crucial
part of the development enabling the various
elements of the eye-catching working, living
and leisure complex to take shape.
Working safely throughout the pandemic,
the project’s main contractor, Gatesheadbased
Tolent, secured 60 per cent of the
concrete super structure, which provides the
primary support of the three seven-storey
apartments now being constructed.
The structural steel frame of the 92-bed
Premier Inn Hotel is almost complete, and
the second of the three tower cranes is on
site.
The steel and concrete works have all been
completed by local companies based within a
10-mile radius of the development including
Finley Structures and Wyn Construction.
Milburngate is being developed by a joint
All change – the beautiful river through
Durham city looks markedly different
after huge investment.
venture partnership between Arlington
Real Estate and Richardson, supported by a
£120m forward funding commitment from
LaSalle Investment Management.
Phase One of the development will feature
a mix of premium leisure operators, such
as Everyman Cinema and Miller & Carter,
along with 153 built-to-rent apartments,
a high specification office building, One
Milburngate, and the Premier Inn hotel.
Arlington Richardson Development
Partnership have already successfully
delivered a number of strategically important
regeneration projects across the region.
Managing director Allan Cook said: “We
are really pleased with the progress we are
making at Milburngate and this significant
civil engineering project will be a catalyst for
the next stage of the development of Phase
One.
“Developing a site of this scale next to
a river in a historic city brings a range of
challenges and we have been impressed
with the innovation and expertise of Tolent
and its supply chain to successfully deliver
this major part of the construction of
Milburngate.”
As well as the hotel, the Milburngate
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