Any Manchester resident partial to a couple of pints on a weekend will be familiar with the ever changing face of Swan Street.
Over the past few years the area has witnessed the arrival of the popular Detroit pizza venue Ramona and its sister restaurant The Firehouse. Not to mention music venue Band On The Wall, a staple of the street since 1975, which recently underwent a £3.5m transformation. Now, more development news for the area has landed in our inbox.
RECOM Solutions, a construction, consultancy and project management company has announced plans to fit out the former Mecanica unit that’s lain empty on the corner of Swan Street and Oldham Street since the end of August 2022.
The venue will be revamped into a bar called The Wayfarer, a new venture for Urban Village Bars which already has two impressive Northern Quarter venues; the recently expanded Another Heart To Feed and The Freemount, as well as Didsbury’s West Village Bar in its portfolio. Urban Village Bars’ new venue will benefit from extensive refurbishment over two floors plus façade works by RECOM.
Although there’s still much to be revealed about the new bar, images show a glazed emerald green tiled front, similar to The Freemount, with covered exterior seating for alfresco evenings under the sun. It’ll join a number of busy venues along the road including; Bar Fringe, Pull Up, The Rose and Monkey and the aesthetically pleasing 70s-inspired cocktail den Sammy’s.
The Wayfarer is the latest in a number of projects that RECOM is working on. It joins Half Dozen Other, a brand-new 4,500 sq ft in a warehouse in the up and coming Red Bank area of Manchester. The team which is also behind Pot Kettle Black, will be serving artisan breads, pastries, focaccias, cakes and other home baked treats. Customers will get front row seats to the mixing, rolling and shaping taking place at the bakehouse.
Half Dozen Other has taken a 10-year lease on the premises in an area which forms a major part of the Victoria North regeneration scheme led by developer Far East Consortium. The bakery will join a growing number of thriving independent food outlets in the area, including; The Sparrows, GRUB and Green Arches.
Jordan Stent, head of construction at RECOM, said: “We are thrilled to be continuing and strengthening our working relationships with the Pot Kettle Black group and Urban Village Bars with these contracts.
“It’s an exciting time for Manchester city centre, and managing projects such as these, which will help add further to the vibrancy and choice on offer, is extremely pleasing for the whole team at RECOM.”
Martin Dillon of Urban Village Bars said: “Our relationship with RECOM has been developed over several years. The company has successfully completed projects at West Village, The Freemount and Another Heart to Feed and now our new venue in the Northern Quarter, The Wayfarer is heading towards completion.
“We look forward to working with RECOM again on future projects as we continue to expand the business.”
