May 28, 2013 12.55 pm This story is over 143 months old

Student flats build leads to 8-week road closure

Building work: St Mark’s Street before the junction with High Street will be closed for eight weeks to allow the build of a new 120-beds student flats complex.
The road will be closed for eight weeks starting May 28 from Rope Walk through to St Mark's Street.

St Mark’s Street, before the junction with High Street, will be closed eastbound-only for eight weeks to allow for the build of a new 120-beds student flats complex.

JR Pickstock Ltd and Elements Europe, both members of The Pickstock Group, are building the 50 student flats on land between the St Mark’s Church Hall (housing the RSPCA) and the Eskimoo milkshake shop.

The former Bacon Factory, which once stood in the gap, was demolished in 2010 and received planning permission for a seven-storey building in August 2012.

The complex will be built using the modular Roompod building system and will require a crane on the closed side of the road to put the pods in place.

The road will be closed for eight weeks starting May 28 from Rope Walk through to St Mark’s Street at the junction with High Street. Eastbound traffic is redirected via Brayford Wharf East.

The road closure should be in place throughout the working week only, with some Saturday work, and no Sunday closures in place.

Modular student flats

Mock views of the new student flats complex, flush with the RSPCA shop.

Mock views of the new student flats complex, flush with the RSPCA shop.

The six and seventh floor of the new complex will be placed further back in the building, while the ground floor will house a coffee shop, with services such as plant room and bin storage at the rear of the building.

The building will extend over the unit currently occupied by Eskimoo, while the RSPCA church building will remain intact, flush with the new flats.

The pavement in front of the building will also allow for the road to be widened at a later stage on completion of the East West Link Road proposal.

The new student development will see 120 student rooms, with studio apartments, cluster rooms and ‘buddy rooms’.

By using a fully volumetric modular design and only assembling the rooms on site, it’s expected the building work will take 24 weeks, with completion set ahead of the new academic year.

Kevin Arthur, Sales Director at Elements Europe, said: “Modular construction is the way forward for student accommodation. The build will be complete within just 24 weeks enabling the accommodation to cater for the September intake of students — this would simply not be possible with traditional construction methods.”