Cardiff Market facelift brings phoenix back to life

Iconic building in St Mary Street cleaned up

1 November 2016

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Cardiff’s iconic Market building on St Mary Street has been given a facelift after maintenance works were conducted under instruction of Cooke & Arkwright’s Building Consultancy. The Grade II listed building had deteriorated over time and pollution had caused excessive discolouration to the historic bathstone exterior.

Cleaning the walls using special processes has removed the deep staining and brought the features of the five and six-storey Victorian building back to life. These include the phoenix over the central arch which symbolises the rebirth of the building after it burned down in 1885.

Rhys Davies, Senior Surveyor with Cooke & Arkwright’s Building Consultancy, who were instructed by the landlord to act as contract administrators for the maintenance work, comments, “Some stone cleaning methods can cause further deterioration to the stone. However, the cleaning to the market building façade was undertaken using a mixture of modern and traditional non-aggressive processes. Nebulous water sprays and a superheated steam cleaning system were used. Both work almost like a light sprinkler system, soaking through the stones outer skin and removing the deep staining. Some light brushing was undertaken to the deep stained areas and to the areas of stone carvings. The before and after photos clearly demonstrate what a difference these works have made and we are very pleased with the result.”

The principle contractor was Source Site Services and the stone masons were Architectural Stone.

I have worked with Jeremy Symons over the past three years successfully leasing and buying property in support of my business. I continue to be very pleased with his knowledge of the market and expertise. Our relationship over this time has resulted in acquiring 20,000 sq ft at Capital Business Park in Cardiff, leasing 11,000 sq ft at Southpoint, and subsequently leasing an initial 42,000 sq ft at Parc Bedwas, followed by a succession of expansions of a further 11,000 and then 47,000 sq ft, enabling us to centralise all of our operations at Parc Bedwas in a single 100,000 sq ft facility. The acquisitions were completed at the perfect time for tenant purposes and the rent fixed throughout the term at very economical rates. A job well done.

Bob James, Aerfin