Along Deansgate and the civic quarter, Manchester’s most sought-after addresses are taking shape, and the city’s first branded residences are being built on them.
In November 2027, heads of government will meet at Manchester Central for the G20 Leaders’ Summit, the Cabinet Office announced in September. Downing Street already has an office in the city. No 10 North opened in July 2026 in Heron House on Albert Square, beside the Town Hall. Announcing the summit, Bev Craig, Mayor of Greater Manchester, said the area ‘is being recognised as an emerging star of the global economy’.
In the world’s leading cities, the best addresses are famous in their own right, and that is where branded residences are built. Manchester’s residential market is well established, and a decade of development has given the city a skyline recognised well beyond it. Its prime city centre market is younger, and its best addresses are being defined now, in the streets around Albert Square and Deansgate. The first branded residences show where they are.
W Residences Manchester at St Michael’s, which Salboy is delivering with Relentless Developments, are the city’s first branded residences, and they sold out within six months of launch. Simon Ismail, co-founder of Salboy, said of the launch: ‘We knew Manchester’s first branded residences in this one-off prime location would make a huge impact but the response has been overwhelming.’
What makes an address prime
Published data records sales long after buyers have chosen where to live, so it gives a poor picture of a prime market while it is forming, and location tells you more. Savills identifies three qualities shared by the markets that attract the wealthiest buyers: international connectivity, security for capital, and cultural and civic amenity.
Manchester’s prime core runs along Deansgate, from St Michael’s on Jackson’s Row to Great Bridgewater Street, and takes in St Peter’s Square and the civic quarter. Deansgate station and the Metrolink link it to the rest of the city, Manchester Central gives it an international convention centre, and the Town Hall, Central Library and the Bridgewater Hall are within a short walk of each other.
How branded residences define it
In an established prime market, the address carries the reputation. In an emerging one, the brand carries it, and the buildings that bear a brand mark out the streets that are becoming the city’s prime addresses.
Many Manchester apartment towers already have a gym and a concierge desk. What they lack is a brand standard for how the building is designed, specified and serviced, and an operator whose name depends on keeping to that standard after residents move in. A branded residence puts the brand’s name on the door. If the standard slips, the brand’s reputation slips with it.
In Europe, Savills’ 2026 report records an average price premium of 38% for branded residences over comparable non-branded residences, up from 29% a year earlier, and its agent research finds that what residents are buying into is the service ethos of the brand.
W Residences Manchester will share a 43-storey tower with the city’s first W hotel. Residents will have their own entrance and lifts, a Residents’ Lobby and Residents’ Lounge, and use of the W spa, pool and gym. The standard is W’s, and so is the management: the Whatever/Whenever concierge will be available around the clock, and a dedicated Marriott team will run the residences.
What comes next
The Town Hall’s restoration is due to finish in spring 2027, W Residences Manchester will complete during the year, and the G20 summit follows in November.
Salboy is now developing the city’s next branded residences. Nobu Residences Manchester will bring residences, Nobu Hotel and a Nobu restaurant and bar to one address above the historic Grade II listed Viadux arches on Great Bridgewater Street, at the southern end of the Deansgate core. Planned as Manchester’s tallest tower, it is designed by SimpsonHaugh, with interiors by Bowler James Brindley. Facilities will include a spa with a pool, a gym, event spaces, a landscaped podium garden and a 24-hour concierge.
The restaurant will be the part of the brand that anyone in the city can walk into. Knight Frank describes restaurants and bars as expressions of brand identity, and counts more than 50 Nobu restaurants, 41 hotels and 18 residences. The site sits beside Deansgate station, a short walk from Manchester Central, where world leaders will meet in November 2027.
Join the Nobu Residences Manchester Waiting List
Sources: Cabinet Office, September 2026; Savills, Branded Residences 2025/26; Savills, Branded Residences Europe 2026; Knight Frank, The Residence Report 2025/26; Manchester City Council, Our Town Hall update, November 2025;
