Plans have been submitted for a 46-storey tower on the edge of Manchester city centre, on a site that has sat empty for years.

Developer Chatha Capital and landowner Kirindolam 8 Limited have applied to Manchester City Council for permission to build One Castlefield on land off Ellesmere Street, on the border of Hulme and Cornbrook and close to Cornbrook Metrolink stop.

The scheme would deliver 592 homes in two buildings: a tower of up to 46 storeys, one storey shorter than the Beetham Tower, and a mid-rise block of up to nine storeys.

The homes would be split into 193 one-bed, 354 two-bed, 27 three-bed and 13 four-bed apartments, plus five two-bed townhouses.

Architect Denton Corker Marshall has designed the taller building with a glass façade and the smaller block in red brick. After a public consultation this summer, the plans were amended to add a ground-floor café facing Ellesmere Street and more publicly accessible space around the tower, with a better link towards the tram stop.

The site, between Trentham Street, Ellesmere Street and the Cornbrook railway line, is the last undeveloped plot in the wider St George's regeneration masterplan. Developer DeTrafford previously won permission for a £75m, 420-home scheme there called No1 Castlefield, but it was never built. Chatha Capital bought the site out of administration after the company behind that scheme collapsed.

In a statement submitted with the plans, the applicants said the scheme would "repair a cleared and visually poor site condition" and deliver homes "in a highly sustainable city centre fringe location".

The application (reference PLA-2026-001341) was validated on 15 September and is pending. A decision from the council is expected in the coming months.

Sources: Manchester City Council planning record, Insider Media, Estates Gazette and the Manchester Evening News. This article was produced with the help of AI tools and checked against the sources above.