Dakota builds pace in Northern England
This is the fourth Dakota Hotels brief for JPG, which has already provided services for Leeds and Manchester city centre and is currently delivering a new hotel near Newcastle.
Dakota Hotels has submitted a planning application for the 154-room hotel off Bailey Lane, within the 60-acre MIX Manchester development.
The £60 million scheme is expected to generate around £12 million a year for the local economy.
KPP Architects are taking charge of the Manchester Airport development’s design. The complex will be a 7-storey new building, with a reinforced concrete frame structure supported on piled foundations socketed into Mercia Mudstone.
The structure also contains reinforced concrete transfer beams at the first-floor level to ensure column positions do not adversely affect the proposed room layout. Construction will start on site later this year with completion expected in later summer 2026.
Liam Bower at JPG said, “We are delighted to secure a further brief from Dakota Hotels, cementing our relationship moving forward as a trusted and valued expert advisor. The brand is synonymous with style and impeccable service, and it is great to be able to demonstrate our expertise on delivering luxury lifestyle projects as well as industrial for which we are well known for.”
JPG is the retained strategic partner for the ongoing Dakota portfolio providing full civil, structural, geo-environmental and highway engineering consultancy across the projects.
Construction progressing in Newcastle
Construction is progressing on the Newcastle site where JPG is providing civil and structural services. Works include the transformation of a vacant 5-storey office building at St Ann’s Wharf into a luxury waterfront hotel ready for its grand opening in the spring of next year.
The structural works include a first-floor steel extension deck supported off a reinforced concrete raft foundation to provide additional floor space for the 115-bedroomed hotel. The main structural challenges of this project involved analysing the capacity of the existing structure and finding the most economical way to redistribute new loads to minimise strengthening requirements to the existing steelwork and foundations.
Established in 1988, JPG currently employs 45 people within its Leeds headquarters and provides civil and structural engineering consultancy services for clients throughout the UK. It covers all major development sectors with expertise in every aspect of civil and structural engineering from initial site investigation to detailed civil and structural engineering design and construction support. JPG also offers dedicated consultancy services in Geo-Environmental Engineering, Strategic Land Engineering, Geospatial Analysis and BIM Services.
JPG has created a long-lasting legacy having delivered essential engineering expertise for strategically important, game-changing sites across the UK.