Water Street, Manchester: The Complete Guide
Everything on Water Street, Manchester. Home to Aviva Studios, part of the Castlefield and Mayfield regeneration, and one of the city's most-discussed new addresses.
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Water Street has become one of the most-discussed addresses in Manchester in the last few years. It runs along the edge of Castlefield and connects to the wider Mayfield regeneration, but what put it on the map recently is Aviva Studios — Factory International's enormous new arts venue that opened in 2023 and has become one of the most important cultural venues in the UK.
Where it is
Water Street runs roughly east-west on the southern edge of central Manchester, near Castlefield Basin and close to the Science and Industry Museum. It's an area that's been reshaped dramatically over the past decade, with new developments, public art, and venues that have turned a corner of central Manchester that used to feel peripheral into one of its most active cultural destinations.
Aviva Studios
Aviva Studios is the headline. It opened in 2023 as the permanent home of Factory International (the organisation behind the Manchester International Festival), in a building designed by Ellen van Loon of OMA. It's one of the most significant new arts buildings anywhere in Europe in recent years — a huge, flexible space that can host everything from large-scale theatrical productions to contemporary art installations to concerts and film events.
The building sits on Water Street and dominates the surrounding area. Its programming has been ambitious from day one: Ai Weiwei, Christian Marclay, and major contemporary music commissions have all made it one of the most talked-about cultural venues in the country.
What else is on Water Street
Beyond Aviva Studios, the area around Water Street includes the Ordsall Chord railway viaduct (one of the most photogenic bits of industrial architecture in central Manchester), connections to the Bridgewater Canal, and access to the Science and Industry Museum just around the corner. It's a transitional area between Castlefield and the Mayfield regeneration project to the east.
How to get there
Metrolink: Deansgate-Castlefield is the nearest stop, about 5 minutes' walk
Train: Deansgate station (mainline) is the same distance
Walking: 10 minutes from Piccadilly Gardens or St Peter's Square
Parking: limited street parking; NCP at First Street and nearby
What's changing
Water Street and the wider Mayfield area are in the middle of a significant regeneration. Over the next few years, expect more venues, new public spaces, and a continuing shift in the centre of gravity of central Manchester's cultural scene towards this part of the city. It's already worth visiting; in a few years it will be unrecognisable from what it was even a decade ago.