UK Market:Ballymore is targeting its first major development in Manchester.

The Irish developer is preparing to make a bid of up to £30 million (€44.165 million) for Inacity's long-delayed 188-metre (620ft) Eastgate Tower scheme in Manchester's Piccadilly.

Ballymore is considering a bid after Merepark - a joint venture partner in Inacity alongside Manchester-based developer Wayne Mellor - approached it several months ago.

Merepark is believed to have introduced the site after the two companies worked together on the development of the £160 million (€235.5 million) Central Village mixed-use scheme in central Liverpool.

Inacity was awarded planning consent for the Woods Bagot-designed Eastgate Tower, off Store Street, in 2005, after buying the site two years earlier for £14 million (€20.6 million).

The scheme will provide 700 flats, a 220-bedroom hotel and more than 2,787sq m (30,000sq ft) of commercial space in a 60-storey tower.

There has been little progress on site since the scheme was announced, and a crucial deal with a hotel operator has so far failed to materialise.

However, Mellor is bullish about the future of the scheme, which could have an end value of £200 million (€294.5 million).

In 2005, he said: "The only way it won't get built is if I'm dead."

Sources said that prospects for the tower could improve if it is taken on by Ballymore, which is carrying out a massive UK development programme, including the 92,903sq m (1 million sq ft) Snow Hill mixed-use scheme in Birmingham.

One Manchester agent said: "The scheme seems to have stalled without the commitment of a hotel operator. The involvement of a developer of Ballymore's calibre could give it the kick-start it needs."

If built, the tower would be the tallest residential building in the UK, beating Manchester's 168-metre (554ft) Beetham Tower.