Sunderland isn’t a place outsiders flock to unless they’re heading for a football match at the Stadium of Light. Yet 121 of 179 flats at a landmark block have already been sold, even though the builders haven’t finished laying the foundations.

Fifty have gone to an Irish investor. Other buyers include migrants from Sunderland looking to come home — if not now, then to retire — and first-time buyers priced out of Tyneside. There’s even a Londoner who wants to move in full-time because he thinks the north is more friendly.

Echo24 has been named after the slab-like newspaper office that used to stand on the steep banks of the River Wear. It will rise to 11 floors and look over the rooftops towards Newcastle upon Tyne and the sea nearby, and is unlike anything built in the area so far. The “24” part of the name reflects the idea of local developer Glenrose that the scheme’s residents will want a 24/7 lifestyle; accordingly, the ground floor will have shops, cafes and bars.

At the moment, it’s difficult to see why anyone would want to wander round Sunderland 24/7, because the city centre’s regeneration plans are mostly still on paper. But people often forget that Newcastle’s smart Quayside was once a place that only the brave or foolish would venture into at night.

Local buyers have also boosted sales. Dentist Mark Burton, 44, and his wife, Marion, 41, a company secretary, have put down £1,000 to reserve a £380,000 three-bed duplex on the top two floors, which is expected to be ready in 2007. “Newcastle was really grotty and we’ve seen what’s happened there,” he says. “It can happen in Sunderland, too.”

The couple will keep their four-bed house in Boldon, a few miles north, and use Echo24 as a city pad, especially on match days. For Burton, the easy walk across the Wearmouth Bridge to the Stadium of Light was a big selling point. But his teenage daughters, Amanda, 16, and Jane, 14, are more interested in having a place close to shops and cinemas. “It’s about being a part of the way Sunderland is going to take off,” says Burton. “I’m very excited about it.”

But can Sunderland compete with trendy Newcastle and Leeds, whose old industrial sites have been washed away by vast waves of flat-building? The city has been slow to imitate Tyneside’s regeneration. One big stumbling block has been the Vaux Brewery site, just up river from Echo24. It is zoned for offices and 1,000 flats, but the city’s regeneration body, Sunderland arc — set up only in 2002 — is battling with Tesco, which owns the 15-acre property and wants to build a hypermarket there.

Nicola Osborne, of Knight Frank in Newcastle, says that Sunderland must get offices, shops and leisure facilities in place to sustain a market for smart city-centre flats. “What did it for the Newcastle Quayside was that these things were in place,” she says.

Opposite Echo24 is the first phase of St Peter’s Wharf: 37 of its 63 flats have been sold, some are now occupied and the building is nearly finished. There were to be 240 more flats in the next two phases, but developer Akenside is concerned enough about a cooling market to be considering turning phase three over to hotels and student accommodation. Phase two, with 93 flats, will still go ahead. Director Geoffrey Britton says: “There will be a saturation point, but it will be the prime sites that will sell first.”

Ben Hall, of Sunderland arc, is upbeat that it will all happen and that a ceiling of 1,500 city-centre flats will avoid oversupply. Eighty per cent of people who leave Sunderland do so because of the low supply of good-quality housing, he says. “There is a demand for this type of unit.”

One of the main selling points for Echo24 is that it is slap-bang in the centre of the city. A new cinema and casino are opposite, and the Northern Gallery for Contemporary Art and a theatre are close by. New bars and restaurants are also springing up. Even so, developers are relying on buyers having a good sense of imagination as they squint down river towards the city’s grey, industrial East End.

Echo24, two-bed flats from £194,950, three-bed duplexes from £350,000, 0870 910 1201, www.echo24.co.uk

St Peter’s Wharf, two-bedroom flats priced at £155,000-£290,000, three-beds at £350,000-£375,000, 0191 514 5923, www.akenside.co.uk

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