The Luxury Manchester Developments Transforming the City

Robert De Niro and Manhattan are legendary bedfellows. Travis “You talkin’ to me?” Bickle in Taxi Driver. The Tribeca Film Festival he co-founded. The first-ever Nobu restaurant and the cool crowd’s Greenwich Hotel, both part of his hospitality empire. The world’s most famous film star – well, one of, certainly — has played a pivotal role in shaping the cultural landscape of the place he has always called home. 

Manc-hattan, on the other hand – the nickname some marketeers are giving to the centre of Manchester, where the regenerating skyline is starting to take on the lofty heights of its New York namesake – is a new addition on De Niro’s radar. “I haven’t seen the city yet.  won’t have a chance this time, but I will come back. I don’t know enough,” the 82-year-old film star says with a sheepish smile at the recent launch of Nobu Manchester – the hospitality brand’s first foray into residences in the UK, following hot on the heels of similar hotel, restaurant and residential projects in Los Cabos and Toronto. 

To be fair to the super-rich superstar, he and his Nobu co-founders – Nobu Matsuhisa, the chef who has taken Japanese-Peruvian cuisine to stratospheric levels, and Meir Teper, the Hollywood film producer whose movie plaudits include What’s Eating Gilbert Grape, which gave Leonardo DiCaprio his breakout role – are feeling a little weary after a fast- paced European tour that covered five cities in six days. The previous day, De Niro had been given the highest award bestowed by the city of Rome. “I was honoured. I didn’t expect it,” he says, padded in coat and scarf to protect against the wintry Mancunian chill.  

But De Niro’s mere presence in the capital of the North – and the power of association with the Nobu brand, which now has 50+ restaurants and more than 40 hotels, plus a dozen or so residential projects built or in the pipeline around the world – is sprinkling some glitzy stardust on a city that’s already doing a good job of thriving while much of the country wallows in economic and existential gloom. 

Manchester’s property market has seen prices double in the last decade. “The North-West is expected to be the strongest-performing region in the five years to 2030, with house prices to increase by 27.6 per cent compared to a UK average of 22.2 per cent,” comments Jamie Adam, head of Northern England — Residential Development Sales at Savills, which secured the city centre’s highest priced sale last year: the £3m penthouse at Viadux, the first phase of local developer Salboy’s £360m scheme that includes the Nobu Residences in phase two.

“Manchester is home to a rich and diverse population, with more than seven million people living within an hour of the city centre. It’s an economic powerhouse,” Adam adds. Nobu Manchester’s 452 branded residences — which go on sale later this year, ranging from around £600,000 to £10m, an unheard-of price in these parts — will sit above the brand’s hotel in a 76-storey tower located in the central Deansgate area.  

By partnering up with Salboy rather than bringing in out-of-towners (i.e., Londoners), Nobu’s three figureheads – who all play a part in deciding where and what to build next – have stayed true to their ethos to respect and use local experience and expertise. Of the synergy between their brand and the city, Teper comments: “Our vision has always been to bring together exceptional design, cuisine and hospitality in destinations that have a true sense of soul. In Manchester, you can feel that energy everywhere.”

Matsuhisa naturally has an eye on the city’s restaurant scene (its hottest tickets currently include the hard-to-get-into Skof, led by chef Tom Barnes in the regenerated NOMA district). “Even on a short visit, I can sense how much passion there is for food here,” says Matsuhisa. 

Until recently, few would have imagined that a global brand like Nobu would find a home in Manchester – including Salboy’s co-founder, Simon Ismail. “They used to throw the food at you here,” he says of its restaurants. “No one wanted to do the job. Now people take pride in it. There are two Michelin-starred restaurants in Manchester now, and Nobu will take the fine dining scene to the next level.”  

Ismail lists some of Manchester’s big selling points: “It’s extremely welcoming and multicultural. It’s half the price of London, half the cost of living; you can walk across the city in 10 minutes; and it has Europe’s biggest student population.” It is also, thanks in no small part to its football heritage, “a global brand in its own right,” he adds, “which makes it an easier sell because people have heard of it. We’re selling to expats in the Middle East who are bringing their money home, or to the Hong Kong and Singapore market,” says Ismail, who is one of the key developers behind Manchester’s high-rise reinvention, bringing what he calls “sophisticated investors worldwide” to the metropolis. The city’s footballer-belt millionaires are on the move too, he explains, with the new tier of luxury towers offering hotel-style living persuading people to sell their Cheshire mansions and move into the city centre instead. 

Although no one who lives and/or works in the city centre seems to know exactly where Manchester’s “skyscraper district” – a name that has been coined recently in property investment circles – starts or ends,  it undoubtedly includes New Jackson, whose Club de Padel (currently closed and set to reopen later this year in a new Manchester location) is as much about its branded sportswear by UN:IK as its on-court action. New and thrustingly named high-rises include The Blade, featuring three floors of private amenities such as a Peloton spin studio and a private dining suite. The apogee is the 49th- and 50th-floor penthouse, called The Haworth, on sale for £1.7m.  

The real groundbreaker, however, is the  W Residences, the UK’s first branded development outside of London. Also built by Salboy in partnership with former footballer Gary Neville’s Relentless Developments (he spent 15 years getting planning permission), the 217 apartments, interior designed by Bowler James Brindley, have all sold well before autumn 2027 completion, including the £6m penthouse. Nearby are all the touchpoints of moneyed central Manchester, including Sexy Fish, Gordon Ramsay’s Lucky Cat and the newly opened Soho House – the private members’ club’s first Northern branch. 

The luxury brands may be piling in, but key to Manchester’s success is “doing the right thing in the right place for the right reasons. Then the whole city is behind you,” says Andy Windsor, CEO of the marketing and design company Want Studios. Recent projects from Want Studios include the launch of Tangerine, a food hall and music venue that hosts events such as big-name DJ sets and speakeasies (its version of TED talks). Cupra City Garage Manchester is another new arrival. And like Nobu and W, the luxury car marque has chosen Manchester as its first UK location outside of London, with a showroom that hosts immersive music, design and lifestyle experiences. “These are global brands working with local independents to develop the right thing for the city,” Windsor comments. 

You don’t have to live in a Nobu tower to live the luxury lifestyle though. Wellness – from the likes of the city’s sauna and ice bath facility Fix MCR – is the new clubbing for Manchester’s disposable income-rich young things, adds Holly Moore, founder and CEO  of Make Events. 

“People’s spending habits have changed here. It’s not just about nightclubs anymore,” says Moore, 48, who lives in Cheshire but has a crash pad in one of Salboy’s earlier city centre schemes, Local Blackfriars. “Influential brands, including many beauty and fashion brands, and experimental events have started to come here since 2020,” she adds. 

Sheltering within the Victorian railway arches that will soon house a Nobu restaurant, De Niro says he never envisaged the brand would extend beyond one restaurant in a converted Tribeca warehouse – “with mice running around” Matsuhisa recalls. “We had no idea,” says De Niro. “I just thought it would be wherever we found the spot.” He certainly could never have imagined that, three decades later, he would be building £10m apartments on an old industrial site in central Manchester. No one could. But this is most likely just the start of Manchester’s luxury branded story. And there’s no one better qualified to play the starring role.