Lumiere Developer To Be Wound Up

Lumiere Developer To Be Wound Up

Published on 23-08-2010 by Skyscrapernews.com

It seems to be curtains for the Ian Simpson Architects designed residential skyscrapers in Leeds, the Lumiere.

The project is now on its last legs and about to be put-down with the news that the developers have decided to wind up the scheme by having decided to put the holding companies that were going to build it, Lumiere Leeds General Partner Limited and Lumiere Leeds Nominee Limited, into voluntary liquidation on the 1st of September.

The news has already been greeted with sighs of relief from investors who put up deposits of tens of thousands of pounds to secure apartments off-plan, only to find their money locked away as the scheme failed to start construction whilst the developer continued to claim that they were going to build it thus preventing the release of the deposits. Now depositors should be able to claim their monies back, with the sums having been unwritten by Zurich.

The news is hardly a surprise however. Planning consent had been withdrawn from the project earlier in 2010 whilst the investors were planning to begin legal action to reclaim their money leaving the developer with few options to proceed with.

It's all a far cry from the heady days of 2007 and 2008 because such were the sales that the project had actually sold 700 of its 952 apartments by the time the financial crisis hit. This is was a level that should have made it viable to build but despite this, it wasn't. Had the Lumiere been but a few months further advanced it's likely it would have gone ahead.

If they had been built, the Lumiere towers would have been 172 and 113 metres tall with 55 and 33 floors making it comfortably Leeds tallest building and the tallest outside London too.

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