Newcastle developer snaps up Lexi site

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A prime development site fronting onto Manchester’s Piccadilly Gardens has changed hands for £770,000.

The cleared plot, on the corner of Piccadilly and Lever Street, has been bought by Newcastle-based developer Trafalgar Leisure from the administrators of Lexi Holdings.

Lexi was a property lender which collapsed in October 2006 with debts of more than £100m.

The site was to be used for the firm’s planned headquarters to be called “Lexi Towers”.

Planning permission was secured in 2006 for an eight-storey, 26,300 sq ft mixed-use block designed by Manchester architecture firm Hodder+Partners.

Trafalgar, owned by Sam Hamadi, owns several bars in Newcastle’s gay village and has plans to turn a former department store in the city into a hotel.

Lexi administrator KPMG confirmed it had sold the site last November but the identity of the buyer, and the price paid, have been revealed in documents filed with the Land Registry.