An office building in Liverpool city centre is to benefit from a further £3.5m worth of upgrade work on both the interior and the exterior. Tony McDonough reports

Property firm Downing is investing a further £3.5m into the continuing refurbishment of No 1 Old Hall Street in Liverpool’s commercial district.

The next phase of work will focus on the exterior of the building but will also include the refurbishment of a 4,200 sq ft office suite. This will offer direct access off reception and will benefit from the new double height, feature glazing.

Planning approval was secured in July and contracts have since been placed for the provision of new cladding and windows to all upper floors and elevations. Work is expected to complete in April 2022 .

The building’s three ground floor shop tenants, Pret-A-Manger, Out to Lunch and JW Newsagents all remaining open throughout. Previous phases have seen a full roof replacement, a power upgrade, the completion of a new building entrance and reception area, breakout areas and meeting spaces.

This is as well as providing 10,100 sq ft of Grade A space on the fifth floor and additional flexi-office suites. John Clegg, head of property management at Downing, said it was another key milestone in bringing more than 26,000 sq ft of office space to the area.

He added: “No.1 Old Hall Street is inarguably the best located building in Liverpool’s commercial business district, being right on the junction of the old and the new with great connectivity and proximity to the city’s retail centre and the waterfront.

“However, it’s probably fair to say that in recent years its appearance has not quite lived up to its prime position. A lot of the internal work has now been completed and the space we have tackled is Grade A with more to follow.

“Now we have secured planning approval we are wasting no time addressing the external appearance of the building. We are receiving a lot of interest already particularly around the bigger suites and we expect that interest to grow as potential new occupiers see the works crystallise, over a relatively short period of time.”