Manchester United Soccer Stars Hope To Buy and Redevelop Synagogue
Middle of Table: Manchester United star Ryan Giggs hopes to buy a synagogue for a downtown real-estate development he is spearheading in the English city. His team are currently languishing in the middle of the table, eight points below leaders Arsenal. Image by getty images
Manchester United soccer star Ryan Giggs and retired icon Gary Neville reportedly plan to buy a synagogue in Manchester as part of a sprawling redevelopment plan they are spearheading.
The longtime teammates want to buy the Manchester Reform Synagogue, which located in a prime location in the city’s dilapidated central business district, the Jewish Chronicle reported.
The synagogue purchase will be part of a deal to develop a abandoned police station and other properties which the budding real estate developers hope to turn into a multimillion dollar mixed commercial-residential complex.
The shul was built in the early 50’s, after its predecessor was destroyed in the Nazi blitz of 1941.
The plans call for the building to be torn down and replaced by a new ‘eco-friendly’ synagogue, along with apartments, shops and a spanking-new community center.
The synagogue’s president Danny Savage confirmed the discussions with Giggs and Neville, who are among Manchester sports royalty, but declined to give further details.
“Our uniqueness as the only city-center synagogue make it more inclusive a community, predominantly for the Jewish community. Our hope is that it will include meeting spaces, which have been given a lot of thought,” the president said, according to the Chronicle.
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you move on, I wanted to ask you to support the Forward’s award-winning journalism during our High Holiday Monthly Donor Drive.
If you’ve turned to the Forward in the past 12 months to better understand the world around you, we hope you will support us with a gift now. Your support has a direct impact, giving us the resources we need to report from Israel and around the U.S., across college campuses, and wherever there is news of importance to American Jews.
Make a monthly or one-time gift and support Jewish journalism throughout 5785. The first six months of your monthly gift will be matched for twice the investment in independent Jewish journalism.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
