The buildings here
A mix of 1960s and 1970s office towers on Portland Street and Mosley Street, Victorian warehouse conversions off King Street and Princess Street, and modern floor plates at NOMA, Victoria and around Piccadilly Basin. Most tenancies are single floors or part floors inside a managed building.
The buildings we work in
Manchester city centre is not one office stock, it is four sitting on top of each other. There are the 1960s and 1970s towers along Portland Street and Mosley Street, still full of small and mid size tenancies on part floors. There are the Victorian warehouses off King Street, Princess Street and Whitworth Street, converted to offices with original stone stairs and timber that never behaves like a modern floor. There are the newer floor plates at NOMA, Victoria and Piccadilly Basin. And there is the residential conversion stock, where communal areas need a cleaner on a set day and a visit record the managing agent can show.
Each one changes the specification. A part floor in a 1970s building has a tired core, a single washroom block shared with the floor next door and carpet tile that has outlived two tenants. A NOMA floor plate has its own tea points, plenty of internal glass and a raised access floor under carpet tile. The tasks are similar, the timings are not.
How rounds are built here
Distance between sites is small and access time is large. Signing in at a desk, waiting for a lift and getting a fob activated can take as long as the walk from Spring Gardens to Deansgate. Rounds are therefore built by building, and evening teams work a short geographic loop rather than crossing the centre twice.
Waste is the other constraint. Most buildings in the centre have a shared bin store in the basement with a timed collection, and the route to it goes through the goods lift. We check that route on the site visit, because a specification that ignores it always runs over.
Fit-out work between tenancies
Letting activity in the centre keeps a steady flow of Cat A and Cat B work moving. When a floor is refitted, the builders’ clean and the sparkle clean have to fit between the trades leaving and the tenant arriving, usually out of hours and usually with a booked lift. We would rather see the programme early and hold a slot than pick the job up three days before handover.
What matters locally
Access runs through the building manager
Almost every city centre tenancy sits inside a managed building. Evening access means a fob, a sign in at the desk and often a booked goods lift for machinery. We agree all of it with the managing agent at mobilisation rather than turning up and hoping.
Loading bays are timed
Delivering a scrubber dryer or an extraction machine to a Portland Street or Piccadilly building means a loading bay slot. Bays are small, shared and booked by the hour, so periodic work gets scheduled around the bay rather than around the cleaner.
Late working is normal
Legal, professional and tech floors in the centre often have people at desks past seven. Cleaning rounds are sequenced so the busy end of the floor is done last, and daytime housekeeping is a common addition where the floor never really empties.
Old buildings, mixed finishes
A converted warehouse off Princess Street can have original timber, stone stairs, modern carpet tile and a new vinyl tea point on the same floor. Each takes a different method, so the specification names the finish rather than the room.
Jobs we do most often in Manchester City Centre
- Evening contract cleaning for single floor office tenancies
- Daytime housekeeping on floors that stay busy until late
- Communal area cleaning for managed buildings and residential conversions
- Builders' and sparkle cleans on Cat B fit-outs between tenancies
- Carpet extraction and hard floor programmes booked out of hours
- Internal and external glazing on a monthly or six weekly round