The £50m University of Liverpool contract will comprise three buildings, of seven, nine and 10 storeys.

As well as accommodation there will be shops, a laundry and games room. Work will start in October.

Crown Place campus will be built on the site of the university’s veterinary school, which is relocating. The fabric of the demolished veterinary school will be recycled as hardcore material for the scheme.

The contract comes as Ocon’s work on the university’s £34m Chatham Place development draws to a close.

Tom Exell, project architect at Lewis and Hickey’s  Manchester office, said: “The towers are intended to be beacons on the city landscape, standing proudly in the already iconic city skyline.

“The building is intended to respect and enhance the University campus and the wider cityscape, while also providing outstanding views out for students.”

The university will also invest in its off-campus accommodation, developing new residences at its Greenbank site at Mossley Hill to provide a self-contained student village including catering and sports facilities.

The teaching environment for science-based subjects is also being transformed with an investment of £25m in centralised teaching laboratories.

The university is also planning to invest £32m in teaching facilities in the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, £7.5m in an extension to the Management School and £9m in a refurbishment of its Guild of Students.

Other new developments include new student social space and a £4m investment in sports facilities.

Managing director of Ocon, Andrew Barker said: “We are delighted to be continuing our relationship with the University of Liverpool with the Crown Place scheme and this project win reiterates the success of our current student accommodation/mixed use scheme for the client.

“However, it was our expert understanding of the sector and proactive approach that enabled us to add value to the proposed scheme at tender, helping the university to realise its ambition to raise the standard and number of student bedrooms available in Liverpool while minimising the University’s carbon footprint, which was benchmarked in 2005.

“The experienced team from the Chatham Street scheme will simply move across to the Crown Place project this month and we are looking forward to seeing the latest development take shape.”