Kings Waterfront Infrastructure

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Kings Waterfront is a prime waterfront site on Liverpool’s historic docks extending to approximately 14.6 hectares (36 acres). A masterplan was developed in 2001 to develop a distinctive new quarter and high quality destination for the city. The overall strategy for the development comprised a 9,000 seat arena, 1,500 seat conference centre, 8,000 m² exhibition facility, 2 hotels, 1,800 residential units, commercial & retail space and a series of interconnected public spaces. Mouchel Parkman (now Mouchel) were appointed as the lead designers and project managers for the £13m infrastructure package, which included £3m of new utilities installations and substations to support the development. Kerrie Norman was the Project Manager for the package and led a multidisciplinary team of highways engineers, M&E engineers, drainage specialists, structural engineers, landscape architects, street lighting designers, geotechnical engineers and traffic signal designers. There were complex interfaces to be managed with the wider design team who were developing the £180m arena and conference centre, as well as the designers for the proposed £325m Merseytram project, which was being designed to terminate within the Kings Waterfront development (it subsequently did not proceed). The design of the infrastructure required a high level of risk management and innovative design solutions to take account of the stability of the river walls, constraints imposed by the existing pumping station, temporary car parking & bus routes, bridge connections to the site and interconnected construction programmes. The package was successfully completed on time and on budget, providing a high quality public realm design underpinned by resilient scalable infrastructure.