While 2025 saw building work begin on what will become the city’s tallest tower, next year will likely have more eye-catching openings and new starts
Author: Ethan Davies LDRSPublished 2 hours ago
Manchester’s building boom shows no signs of slowing in 2026, with developers continuing to pour millions into the city.
While 2025 saw building work begin on what will become the city’s tallest tower and Blue Peter move into new studios inside a Victorian market hall, next year will likely have more eye-catching openings and new starts.
They include an expansion of the Etihad, a potentially world-changing research lab, and massive revamps of the city’s suburbs. Alongside new workplaces and leisure venues, hundreds of new flats and houses will come to Manchester in 2026 as the city’s population continues to grow.
The Local Democracy Reporting Service has selected 11 major projects either starting or finishing in 2026 to keep an eye on. Take a look below.
This is what’s opening in 2026Manchester City’s new stand, The Etihad
Manchester City’s newly-expanded north stand will open in 2026, club directors have confirmed. It will add 7,000 seats to the Etihad, taking its capacity past 60,000, thus making it the Premier League’s fourth-largest arena.
The project also includes new supporter facilities, like improved concourses and a fan zone, plus a 401-bedroom hotel which will sit between the stadium and Co-op Live arena next door. Ed Dalton, city’s development director said on December 12: “The north stand itself will open during the 2025-26 football season, with the hotel, workspace and public realm works including the fanzone, opening in late 2026.”
Greenheys, Manchester Science Park
Greenheys is a name on the Manchester map which has disappeared in recent years. Sandwiched between Oxford Road and Hulme, Greenheys historically included the University of Manchester and much of its Science Park.
But the name returns to the map next year with a brand new £60m state-of-the-art scientific facility. Staff based here will research genomics when it opens in summer.
Notably, it will be home to the UK Biobank, which ‘follows the lives of half a million volunteers to learn who falls ill and why’ in an effort to find new methods to ‘diagnose, prevent and treat diseases’.
Dovecote House, Pigeon Street, Piccadilly
Affordable housing is starting to become a big thing in the city centre, with Dovecote House another example. Housing association Great Places is building 89 flats — 31 for social rent and 58 for shared ownership — on Pigeon Street, just off Great Ancoats Street.
The new building has been designed to fit around the grade II-listed Armitage showroom. Although tenants might not get amenities modern ‘luxury’ developments boast, like gyms or a spa, they will have a large home, bike storage, and a balcony or terrace.
Didsbury Point, Didsbury
Didsbury Point is a 76-apartment block which will open where Withington Hospital used to be, until it closed in 2002.
Every apartment will be available at affordable rates, let through and developed by Southway Housing Trust. The building will also feature a medical centre on the ground floor, helping improve access in the south Manchester suburb.
Chorlton Baths, Manchester Road, Chorlton
Where Chorlton Baths once stood has been reduced to rubble to make way for an over-55s apartment complex. The £14m block, developed by housing association Mossacre St Vincent’s (MSV), will have 50 new apartments — all priced at social rent levels.
Council chiefs said ‘a few architectural stones, some old tiles and other original features have been salvaged’ from demolition and ‘will be sympathetically incorporated into the new design’, arguing destroying the building was necessary to remove an ‘eyesore’ in the suburb.
This is where construction will startChorlton Cross shopping centre, Chorlton
Chorlton will get a new look in the coming years, as work will start on demolishing its 1970s Chorlton Cross shopping centre in 2026.
Developers PJ Livesey secured permission to knock down the old centre and replace it with a taller building featuring 262 flats, commercial spaces, and a makers’ yard, in December, despite residents arguing the suburb ‘deserves a plan that respects its character, meets genuine housing need and gives us a true district centre that we can be proud of’.
Riverpark Road, Newton Heath
Some 498 homes are set to be built on the former Riverpark Trading Estate, in Newton Heath. More four in 10 of the 277 flats and 221 houses will be available for social rent or via shared ownership, according to developers Great Places and Kellen Homes.
But the new residents may not realise what stood before the new homes, as Riverpark Road was home to ‘The Abs’ for decades, purpose-built in 1968 as the city’s ‘comprehensive abattoir’. Although it closed in 2000, the site was used well into the 2020s for storage, light industry, and for post-apocalyptic TV and film sets.
The Poulton, Mayfield Park, Piccadilly
Work is expected to begin on The Poulton, one of two new office blocks being built around Mayfield Park. The office, along with sister building The Republic and a mobility hub, are set to enlarge the award-winning park by 40pc to 10.2 acres.
Other plans for the area include a small pocket park called ‘Pigeon Triangle’, which is hoped to start construction next year. Looking ahead, work is scheduled to start in a few years’ time on 879 new apartments next door — leading council leader Bev Craig to say Mayfield is the ‘blueprint’ for new Mancunian neighbourhoods.
Wythenshawe Civic Centre, Wythenshawe
Wythenshawe’s long-awaited £500m revamp began in the last two weeks of 2025, with preliminary work to regenerate the Civic Centre by adding a food hall and culture hub starting in earnest. But more building will start next year, with three sites becoming home to 422 flats and townhouses.
Homes built where offices Brotherton House, Alpha House, and C2 The Birtles are now will all be available for social rent, Manchester council and development partner Muse have promised. More dwellings are coming on top of those, with around 2,000 eventually expected to breathe new life to the town.
The Reno, Moss Side
The Reno, Manchester’s legendary underground 1970s nightclub, is long-gone. But hundreds of people could live where it once was, with Mossacre St Vincent’s (MSV) securing planning permission for 212 flats opposite the Heineken Brewery in November.
It’s thought construction on six blocks, including specific over-55s apartments and townhouses could start in December 2026.
Hyde Road, Gorton and Moston Lane, Moston
Manchester council has talked up its proposals to revamp its district centres, and in 2025 it named Gorton and Moston as the next to get some TLC.
Gorton is set for a £60m revamp with 400 new homes and revitalised high street, following the opening of a new public square on an under-used Tesco car park and ‘Gorton Hub’ — containing a library, Job Centre, housing services, and a GP.
On Moston Lane, £90m will be spent with a new public square, green spaces, and alley-gates to tackle anti-social behaviour and fly-tipping alongside more 100 new homes.