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Manchester’s skyscrapers are a sign it’s not just a northern powerhouse, it’s a truly global city drawing more and more people in. That’s the view of many city business, cultural, and political leaders — including Andy Burnham — but it’s also borne out on-the-ground. In July 2025, footfall increased 3pc compared to a year earlier, following a 6pc rise between 2023 and 2024. Join the Manchester Evening News WhatsApp group HERE ‘Everyone in London’ is swapping the M25 for the M60 , one new arrival Amy said recently, ‘because everyone works remotely… there’s so much to do, the people are friendly’. The big hook is Manchester’s ‘buzz’, according to Elisabetta Nicoli and Michael Nehrman — an Italian who moved here twice and a German who holidayed this summer — who spoke to the Local Democracy Reporting Service for the same special report. And now, Manchester’s ‘magic’ has caught the attention of Magnicity, one of the major attraction firms you might not have heard of. It runs some of the world’s best-known viewing platforms like Paris’ Montparnasse Tower, often touted as having a better view than the Eiffel Tower, because visitors can see the landmark from the 1960s modernist block. Magnicity also oversees Berlin’s TV Tower and 360 Chicago, which draw in millions annually. Now, the firm believes Manchester could be next to join the sky-high club. “Certainly there are some components or magic ingredients in what Manchester can propose that could fit that,” explained Parisian Hervé Cacheur, deputy CEO, via video call. “For example, [visitors] typically have a type of interest in the storytelling about the city of Manchester, which somehow people discover when they are high on top. If you can see the football stadiums, it's something that people will want to see for sure.” But it’s not just about tourists seeing the city’s twinkling lights and major landmarks, Hervé added. A viewing platform would also give lifelong Mancs the ability to learn something new about Manchester. “What makes [viewing platforms] very interesting [is] you really propose a discovery of the city, because it's a unique way of learning about the city, discovering a city,” he continued from his office at the top of the Montparnasse Tower. “That's the case for visitors and tourists, but it's very much the case also for residents. Because you see your city in a way that probably you've never seen it. “If I find the time to spend five to ten minutes to look outside, I see something new every time.” While Magnicity has no concrete interest in Manchester at the moment, it does look like the city will get a viewing platform soon that’s higher up than 20 Stories and Beetham Tower’s Cloud 23, bars which sell themselves on wide-ranging cityscape views. Plot D, a 71-storey, 213m-tall skyscraper near Denasgate Square, has planning permission to build soon. On floor 70, the final publicly-accessible level an 8,200 sq ft (762 sqm) restaurant is planned boasting ‘360 degree views of Manchester’ around ‘the full perimeter of the building’. The lantern design architects SimpsonHaugh have created has ‘the potential to serve as a new city landmark’, the practice said: “This treatment envelops the crown of the building, promoting the concept of the beacon when viewed externally but also delivering uninterrupted, distant views across Manchester from the residential amenity spaces and restaurant within.” Developers Renaker are in a race with Salboy to build the city’s tallest tower, with the latter’s Nobu Manchester skyscraper set to eclipse Plot D at 246m, which will also feature ‘upper-level restaurant, bar, events/conference spaces’, but its exact height isn’t known. But the city knows Nobu Manchester will be a similar height to Magnicity’s platforms in Berlin and Paris. And while there is no suggestion Magnicity will move into Manchester at this stage, it goes to show Manchester now is big enough, and attractive enough, to be compared to Europe’s top destinations.
