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Bowmer & Kirkland has won a deal to build a commercial building for the first phase of Landsec’s £1.4bn Mayfield development next door to Manchester Piccadilly train station.

The first phase of the developer’s Mayfield Park plans will see two commercial buildings built as well as nearly 900 homes alongside shops, restaurants, cafés, a health and wellbeing club and community spaces.

B&K, which improved profit last year by a third to £69m, has been appointed to build the first office building at the site which has been designed by Morris & Co.

Called the Republic, it will run across 233,000 sq ft and is due to start on site later this year.

Others working on the Republic include project manager Arcadis, cost consultant Gardiner & Theobald, structures consultant Civic, M&E engineer WSP and planning consultant Deloitte.

The second office, a 95,000 sq ft building called the Poulton, has been designed by Bennetts Associates and will start afterwards along with a cycle parking hub, which has been designed by Studio Egret West. The value of both commercial blocks is believed to be around £400m.

The wider scheme has been designed by architects Studio Egret West and Shedkm with Mayfield Park opening three years ago having previously been a brownfield site.

Earlier this year, Landsec said it would be scaling back the amount of office work it carries out in the future, having unveiled plans for a £2bn sell-off of parts of its office-led assets over the next five years to fund an expansion into residential.

In its results last week, the firm said it won’t start any speculative London office schemes until it has signed up tenants on two schemes it is due to finish next year.