NEWSFLASH 13th July 2015
We are delighted to announce that we are taking bookings for the next
BCFA networking event this will be in Birmingham 15th September at the
BANK Restaurant & Bar in the city centre. This is for you and your locally
based clients to meet up and share the latest industry news. Full details and
the booking form can be found HERE. The usual BCFA rules apply; 4 place
minimum and half of your guests must be your clients.
We are taking bookings for your
advertising in Design Insider, The
BCFA’s official directory for 2016.
Please follow the link HERE for full
details, booking form, media pack
and a link to the previous edition.
The directory is distributed to a wide
and targeted selection of industry
professionals and specifiers.
Detailed plans to build the City’s tallest skyscraper, which will rival the Shard in height and make it the second loftiest tower in
Europe, are being drawn up and will be submitted to the City of London Corporation by the end of the year. The Aviva Tower,
which is also known as St Helen’s and sites opposite the Gherkin would be demolished to make way for the gigantic office block,
according to early proposals. It is also thought that images are being circulated and detailed plans will be submitted by the end of
the year following a lengthy public consultation. The developers, Aroland Holdings, are seeking permission to erect a 304m (997ft)
building, just a few meters shy of the 309m Shard on south of the Thames, which would dwarf 22 Bishopsgate - the stalled Pinnacle
scheme. The site - Number One, Undershaft - was bought by Singaporean magnate Kuok Hong Khoon - the founder and chief
executive of the world’s largest palm oil company, Wilmar International. The architect, Eric Parry, is thought to be leading the
project, having recently finished the Green Properties office building at St James’s Square.
Two contractors have been shortlisted for TH Real Estate’s £400m office scheme at 40 Leadenhall Street. Mace and Laing
O’Rourke will go head-to-head on the project, after two other contractors were ruled out of the race earlier this year. The highprofile job, dubbed ‘Gotham City’, will total 910,000 sq ft, split between 890,000 sq ft of office space and around 20,000 sq ft retail.
A Grade II-listed building at 19-21 Billiter Street, built in 1865, will be restored and integrated into the proposed scheme. The
scheme was designed by Make and varies in height between seven and 34 office storeys, with two additional basement levels, rooflevel plant and a range of café, restaurant and retail units. It was granted planning permission in February last year.
McAleer & Rushe has clinched three major contracts, including the largest Premier Inn job in the country. The new 380-bed Hub
by Premier Inn hotel for Whitbread will be built at King’s Cross in London and is worth £27m alone. The Northern Irish firm has also
won a repeat order worth £37m from Taylor Wimpey to deliver the second phase of its Westminster Quarter in London after
complete phase one. Knightsbridge Student Housing Ltd has also awarded the builder a £17m design and build contract for a 361room student housing scheme in Southampton. McAleer & Rushe is also working with KSHL to progress schemes in Portsmouth and
Dublin comprising a further 1,000- and 400 beds respectively.
Stephen and Leon Fear, who jointly control Fear Group, have revealed that they have submitted plans to Newport City Council for
a £60m redevelopment of former Sainsbury’s site on the riverfront in Newport. The proposals, which were welcomed by local
residents at a public consultation event in the Spring, include a 601 bedroom student village, ian 84 bedroom hotel, a health plaza,
convenience store and 144 residential units including affordable homes which will be delivered in partnership with Newport City.
Planning permission has been granted for a new mixed-use development in Edinburgh which will include a new hotel at its centre
as well as a variety of restaurants and leisure activities. It is the St James scheme and is located in Edinburgh’s St James Quarter.
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The five-star hotel will include up to 210 bedrooms, as well as a 41,000 sq-ft apart-hotel with up to 70 suites. The new development
will replace the existing St James Shopping Centre and the King James Thistle Hotel currently on the site. Construction work is
expected to begin later this year, with completion scheduled for 2020. The St James development will overlook St James Square in
Leith Street. It is a short walk from Edinburgh Waverley station.
Carlton Hotel Collection is set to open its first Edinburgh boutique hotel. The group is planning a new 98-bedroom hotel in Market
Street in Edinburgh’s Old Town. The proposed hotel, situated within the UNESCO World Heritage Site, will be located opposite a side
entrance to Edinburgh Waverley Station. Part of the proposed site has been vacant since the 1960’s. It is adjacent to a 1930’s
warehouse building currently used as a temporary garage. This will be demolished and will form the other part of the new hotel site.
The project is due for completion in September 2017. Carlton Hotel Collection currently has two hotels in the UK – Carlton George in
Glasgow and Carlton Mitre in London.
The owner of the LEGOLAND Windsor Resort has submitted plans for a castle-themed hotel extension to provide 61 "premium"
bedrooms. Merlin Entertainments and LEGOLAND Windsor Park Ltd are proposing to construct the three-storey building on the site
of the existing 'Dino Safari' ride, which it plans to demolish along with a nearby toilet block. The application, which was submitted
by Nathaniel Lichfield & Partners, also includes a covered link walkway to connect the new building to the existing LEGOLAND
Windsor Hotel, which opened in 2012. Other features of the 38,000 sq ft extension will include its own lobby/reception area and
restaurant/bar seating space. The extension will also feature an outdoor seating deck and play area on the southern side,
overlooking the lake. If approved, the new hotel extension is expected to open in early 2017.
Gleneagles, the hotel and golf resort in Scotland, has been sold by Diageo to the company that runs Hoxton Hotels. There are two
Hoxton Hotels in London, in Shoreditch and Holborn. The group has plans to open in other major cities around the globe. The
company said it would keep Gleneagles’ management and workforce, maintain its status in Scotland and spend money on improving
the hotel.
A Latin American-themed restaurant chain with 41 branches nationwide has been bought by the owner of Café Rouge and Bella
Italia. Private equity firm Bowmark Capital has sold Las Iguanas to The Casual Dining Group. Bowmark invested in the chain in 2007
and it has since grown from 14 to 41 restaurants. The growth has seen it expand from its South West heartland into a national
brand. The business will continue to be led by chief executive Mos Shamel.
Shiva Hotels has sold the Ramada Salford Quays and Ramada Birmingham Mailbox to a subsidiary of Marathon Asset
Management for more than the £21.5m guide price. The two hotels, which have 142 and 90 bedrooms respectively, were sold by
JLL and Savills to MCAP Global Finance. Shiva Hotels recently acquired a handful of development sites in Central London and
therefore decided to market the properties in February as they were deemed non-core. The Ramada Salford Quays is located close
to close to MediaCityUK near Manchester and The Ramada Mailbox in Birmingham is located within the Mailbox development,
which is undergoing a £50m modernisation programme. The hotels will be managed by Valor Hospitality Limited, on behalf of
MCAP Global Finance and will be re-branded. They were sold with the opportunity to break the existing franchise agreement and
reposition to an international quality four star brand.
The Eden Project in Cornwall has been granted planning permission for a £6 million, 115-bedroom hotel on its site at Bodelva
near St Austell. The hotel will support Eden's activities, its educational aspirations including its future conference events, its
educational programme as well as its annual season of concerts. The hotel has been designed to blend into the countryside and will
have high standards of accessibility, energy-efficiency and sustainability. It will be a timber-clad structure, similar in style to Eden's
Foundation Building which sits outside of the main visitor area. The hotel will not include any catering provision. Instead guests will
access the existing facilities in the main Eden site. The new hotel is expected to be completed in mid-2016.
Private equity group Lone Star has created a new company, Amaris Hospitality, to bring together a portfolio of 89 UK hotels. The
combined group comprises a total of 15,000 rooms from four separate portfolios acquired by Lone Star over the last two years. This
includes hotels operating under the Jurys Inn, Accor and Hilton brands, and as of 30 July will also include 19 provincial hotels
currently operating under the Thistle brand. Amaris has also announced an £100m investment programme over the coming years,
which will include repositioning and rebranding a number of hotels to Jurys Inn or other brands. Lone Star will retain its remaining
hotels, which will be operated as a portfolio of individual UK provincial hotels trading as The Hotel Collection. This will not form part
of Amaris Hospitality in the long term. Lone Star bought 29 Jurys Inn hotels in January for £680m, and also acquired Puma Hotels,
which owned the Lygon Arms in the Cotswolds and the Imperial in Torquay, for £323m in 2014.
Malaysian gambling conglomerate Genting Group is an early frontrunner to buy a £100m car park in the heart of Mayfair for a
new casino-hotel. Property Week understands Genting, which is one of the largest casino operators in the UK, has entered
negotiations with vendor Blackstone to buy the 0.5-acre Carrington Street site. The four-storey car park in one of London’s most
exclusive areas was put up for sale in April through DTZ and Savills, and was expected to fetch as much as £100m. It is thought to
have attracted significant interest, including from neighbouring landowners the billionaire Reuben brothers, and talks with Genting
remain at an early stage.
Healthy food concept The Detox Kitchen has secured the last remaining retail unit in Exemplar’s Fitzroy Place development for its
new store. The restaurant has taken a 2,000 sq ft unit on the ground floor of the building, joining the Percy & Founders restaurant
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which signed in March, and Estee Lauder Companies, which secured a series of retail units to complement its new 140,000 sq ft
headquarters office at the development.
The demand for hotel rooms at Heathrow could soar by 42%, the equivalent of an extra 3,500 beds, on the back of the Airports
Commission’s recommendation for a third runway, according to Savills. The firm also said that 10-year average occupancy rates
for airport hotels are around 78-79%, meaning they are particularly attractive to operators despite average daily rates often being
lower than their city centre counterparts. Even without extra runway capacity, the relatively robust operational performance and
increasing demand caused by rising passenger numbers at Heathrow (up by 1.4% in 2014 compared to the previous year), is already
attracting new hotel brands. While mid-market branded operators such as Hilton and Holiday Inn have historically colonised the
market, new pod hotel concepts such as Yotel and budget boutique operators such as Bloc are entering the scene. CitizenM, while
not found at UK airports, does have sites in other European airport markets such as Schipol in Amsterdam.
Historic Doddington Hall near Nantwich in Cheshire could be turned into a luxury hotel by its owners if plans submitted to
Cheshire East Council are approved. The project would see the restoration and conversion of the Grade 1-listed Doddington Hall
into a 120-bedroom hotel. A restaurant and bars plus meeting and event space would be added. Three cottages and stables
standing in the grounds would be incorporated into the scheme. A new block would also be added incorporating additional
bedroom accommodation plus a new spa and leisure facility.
San Carlo restaurant group is eyeing another two openings in London next year as well as several international franchise
operations, as it posted a rise in turnover of over 12% in 2014. The company saw its turnover swell by 12.5% to nearly £46.2m for
the year to 30 September 2014. Pre-tax profit was also up by just over 4% to nearly £2.1m. Investment in new restaurants
contributed to the growth, with the launch of San Carlo Fiorentina in Cheshire, San Carlo Bottega in Selfridges in Manchester, and
San Carlo Farmacia Del Dolce in Selfridges Manchester during the 12 months covered by the accounts. Since the end of the period,
Cicchetti restaurant in London's Covent Garden and a new Fumo in Manchester also opened, during the final three months of 2014.
The opening of those sites is expected to push group turnover to £55m for the current financial year to 30 September 2015.
The business is also on the point of opening a new Fumo restaurant St Peter's Square in Manchester.
Pub company JD Wetherspoon has revealed its ambition to build a 73-bedroom hotel alongside its Crystal Palace pub in Glasgow.
The £10m project, which is currently subject to planning consent, will see the creation of 28 bedrooms above the pub as well as a
further 45 bedrooms in an extension, which will be built on an adjacent vacant plot of land. Wetherspoon is understood to have
met with planners and is now progressing its planning application.
American burger group Shake Shack is to open two new sites: one in London and one in Cardiff. Both are set to open in late
2015/early 2016. The London location will be at 80 New Oxford Street, and the company’s third in the city, after Covent Garden
(which opened in 2013) and Westfield Stratford City (2015). The Cardiff site will be in the St David’s Shopping Centre, near the
Millennium Stadium, and will be the group’s first non-London UK site.
TGI Friday's has secured a new 10,000 sq ft restaurant site in Leicester Square, currently occupied by pub brand Yates's. The
restaurant sits beneath the Capital Radio offices on Leicester Square and is planned to be the chain's 70th site when it opens in the
first half of 2016. Yates’s is expected to stop operating the site at the end of this year.
Irish-based Dalata Hotel Group has announced that it intends to rebrand all its ten newly acquired hotels in the UK and Ireland as
Clayton Hotels by the end of this year. The group includes all Bewleys branded hotels as well as the Maldron Hotel in Cardiff.
Dalata operates 45 hotels with 7,480 rooms across the UK and Ireland. They are planning a €27 million redevelopment and
upgrading package, including a rollout of the Clayton Hotel signature bedrooms.
Wyevale Garden Centres, the UK’s biggest horticulture business, grew earnings by over 30pc last year after it was bolstered by
the addition of coffee shops and restaurants to its range of flowers and plants. Wyevale, which is owned by Guy Hands’ Terra
Firma, reported a 5.14pc lift in revenues to £290.4m and a 55pc increase in operating profits to £34.1m. Sales were boosted by a
relaunch of its Garden Kitchen restaurants and the roll-out of its in-house coffee shops, called Coffee Ground.
Dominvs Group has unveiled plans for a £30m hotel in Oxford, along with a restaurant, deli and microbrewery. The 150-bedroom
boutique hotel would be part of the chain Hotel Indigo. The scheme set for Paradise Street in the city centre.
Promoters of the London Paramount theme park in Kent are set to unveil a pipeline of work worth up to £2.6bn after a public
consultation revealed overwhelming local support for the project. Work opportunities for local and international contractors on
the Swanscombe Peninsula scheme will be presented at a series of supply chain events. In the consultation, which concluded last
week, 83 per cent of those surveyed approved of the plans. The development was deemed a nationally significant infrastructure
project in May last year. As a result, London Resort Company Holdings, the company set up to promote the giant theme park, is
required to apply to the government for a development consent order. An application for Paramount will be made later this year.
This would be the first business or commercial DCO to be submitted and, if accepted, the first to be approved. Once complete, the
resort is expected to include up to 210,000 sq m of indoor and outdoor spaces for events, themed rides, attractions, shows and
parades, entertainment venues, cinemas, theatres and nightclubs. Up to 25,000 sq m of cafes, restaurants and bars and around
15,000 sq m of retail facilities will be built. The plans also include the development of hotels with up to 5,000 bedrooms and around
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27,000 sq m of service facilities. The project is backed by Kuwaiti European Holding, an investment group which invests in the
property, health and leisure sectors in Europe and the Middle East.
Tottenham Hotspur FC (THFC) will install an innovative multi-use pitch at its 61,000-capacity stadium in North London – allowing
it to host a minimum of two National Football League (NFL) games each season. The club will use a retractable grass field at its
new £400m venue, with an artificial surface underneath that will be used for NFL games. The design will allow greater flexibility in
the scheduling of games, with the NFL having its own playing surface for games held at the venue. The artificial playing surface will
also be capable of hosting other sporting, entertainment and community events. The English Premier League club announced the
plans to host NFL games as part of a presentation during which it also revealed updated designs for the Northumberland
Development Project – a large-scale sports, leisure and entertainment destination anchored by the new stadium. Set to open in
2018, the development will include a new 180-bedroom hotel, an extreme sports centre, a “Sky Walk” adrenaline attraction and a
“Tottenham Experience” – a permanent visitor attraction and museum charting the club’s history. Sports architects Populous have
been appointed to design the stadium, the hotel and the visitor attractions.
Bouygues UK has landed two contracts worth £36m with Nicolas James Group for the delivery of a new hotel-led mixed-use
development in a prime regeneration area in Southampton. The scheme will include an 85-bedroom spa hotel and 12 apartments,
built on a headland that was used to moor the region’s exclusive yachts and the cross-channel ferries coming into the marina at
Ocean Village. This will be Bouygues UK’s first hotel in the region, and the fourth hotel contract it has announced in the space of the
last six months following projects for citizenM, Gansevoort and the Manhattan Loft Corporation. HGP Architects are also on board
as part of the project. Completion is expected late summer 2017.
ISG has been awarded three regional leisure projects by Alliance Leisure in Selby, Wigan and Prestatyn, together worth £10m.
The Selby Leisure Village project sees ISG construct a 13,000 sq ft steel frame building next to the recently opened Selby Leisure
Centre. New facilities include ten pin bowling, adventure play area, indoor aerial trekking, adventure climbing and an indoor skate
and BMX park. The new structure also incorporates a double-height area for an indoor ski simulator. The Selby contract runs
alongside work at Howe Bridge Leisure Centre in Atherton, Wigan, as part of an operational refurbishment scheme for Alliance
Leisure, which is due for completion in late summer. ISG is transforming the existing sports hall into an ‘Extreme Zone’, including
skate ramps and ‘clip and climb’ walls. ISG is also on site at Prestatyn’s Nova Centre carrying out a refurbishment project that will
deliver improvements to the building’s energy and thermal performance, reducing running costs and the facility’s carbon footprint.
Due for completion towards the end of the year, ISG is building a new entrance and a fitness suite with windows overlooking the
sea, as well as two studio areas with flexible partitioning to allow its use as a single function room.
The new four-star Pullman Liverpool Hotel currently under construction in Kings Dock on Liverpool's waterfront and alongside
the new Exhibition Centre Liverpool is not expected to open now before January 2016. Exhibition Centre Liverpool is scheduled to
open in September 2015. Pullman Liverpool will include 216 bedrooms, a brasserie style restaurant and bar and 8,100 sq-mt of
flexible, accessible event space comprising three meeting rooms, the largest of which will accommodate up to 120 delegates.
It will be the second Pullman Hotel in the UK – the first being Pullman London St Pancras which opened in 2012.
Canada’s largest financial institution, Royal Bank of Canada (RBC), is in advanced negotiations with Brookfield to lease around
250,000 sq ft of space at the developer’s 100 Bishopsgate tower. The bank has been on the hunt for a new City of London head
office since last summer, but is now close to sealing a deal to become the anchor tenant at one of London’s most anticipated
schemes. The deal would be a huge coup for Brookfield and would vindicate its confidence in the market after deciding in May to
speculatively build what will be one of the City’s tallest skyscrapers. RBC is in discussions to let the five podium floors in the 37storey tower, which have floorplates of 44,000 sq ft each, as well as further space in the 900,000 sq ft scheme. The 32 upper floors
have floorplates of between 19,000 sq ft and 25,000 sq ft. The Toronto-based bank is also thought to have considered moves to
British Land and GIC’s 100 Liverpool Street as well as options in Canary Wharf, but is pressing ahead with talks at 100 Bishopsgate.
Work has already begun on the 613 ft tower, which is expected to complete in late 2018.
Mortgage service provider Acenden is set to move into Aberdeen Asset Management’s Ascot House in one of the largest lettings
in the Thames Valley this year. The company has agreed to take the entire 52,000 sq ft office building at Maidenhead Office Park at
a rent equating to £22/sq ft on an 11-year lease. Aberdeen has taken a surrender of the lease held by the previous tenant, Dell
Software, which occupied 21,000 sq ft at the building, and is now refurbishing ready for Acenden’s occupation later in the year.
International law firm Ince & Co and construction giant Balfour Beatty are under offer to occupy a total of 75,000 sq ft of space in
5 Churchill Place, in Canary Wharf. Ince & Co is close to agreeing a deal to sublet 40,000 sq ft from JP Morgan and will relocate
from International House, 1 St Katharine’s Way, in Wapping, while Balfour Beatty is under offer on 35,000 sq ft. Around two-thirds
of the 314,000 sq ft 5 Churchill Place was prelet to Bear Stearns on a 20-year lease in 2006, which JP Morgan took responsibility for
when it acquired the company in 2008, but never occupied the space. It has agreed a handful of subletting deals since, including
American Express taking 36,500 sq ft on levels two and three and Ipagoo taking 26,000 sq ft on level four. JP Morgan has also
withdrawn 26,000 sq ft on level one for its own occupation.
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The AA is moving its Cardiff base to the city’s tallest office building, Topland’s Capital Tower. The motoring association, which is
currently based on Penarth Road, has acquired three recently refurbished floors in the 24-storey tower, where quoting rents stood
at £12.50/sq ft. The company has taken the 15th, 16th and 17th floors, totalling 15,270 sq ft on a 10-year lease.
Japanese bank Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation has appointed agents to advise on a potential office move as it looks to
more than double its space in the City of London. The bank’s European headquarters is in the City, where it occupies the whole of
the 90,000 sq ft 99 Queen Victoria Street building, but it is now looking to increase that space to up to 200,000 sq ft and has
appointed JLL to advise on its options.
Land Securities has secured its first office pre-let at Nova, Victoria, 12 months ahead of completion. The transaction will see
private equity investor Advent International take more than 25,000 sq ft at Nova South on a 15-year lease. Set on a 5.5-acre site
opposite the station, the first phase of the mixed-use Nova scheme will deliver 480,000 sq ft of office space through two buildings –
Nova North and Nova South – together with 170 high quality apartments and restaurants.
Planning consent has been given for a £19m office development in east London. Workspace has received planning permission to
redevelop Holywell Centre on Phipp Street, EC2A. The existing building, comprising 1950 m2 of studio office space, will be replaced
by a new 5100 m2 Workspace business centre at an estimated cost of £19m. The new centre has been designed to complement the
traditional warehouse characteristics of the local South Shoreditch conservation area.
ISG has won a fit-out project in the City of London for Zurich Insurance. ISG will create a new London base for Zurich Insurance at
the 70 Mark Lane development, in the heart of London’s insurance district. The scheme involves the Category B fit out of 70,000 sq
ft of office space to enable the insurer to relocate staff from three existing offices across the capital into one central location.
AXA Real Estate and BlackRock have agreed a flurry of letting deals at 6 Bevis Marks in the City of London, totalling 56,000 sq ft of
space. Navigator Insurance has taken 22,000 sq ft across the seventh and eighth floors of the building and will pay a rent of £60/sq
ft. Financial firm Cardano has agreed a lease on the 13,000 sq ft ninth floor at a rent of £63/sq ft and will relocate from its current
base at 55 Gracechurch Street. Shipping services company Braemar has taken 8,000 sq ft of space on the fifth floor, while financial
company Maven and recruitment firm Gravitas will split the third floor, taking 7,000 sq ft and 6,000 sq ft respectively. The deals
mean the 160,000 sq ft scheme is 75% let or under offer a year after it completed.
The world’s biggest engineering design firm, Aecom, has launched a London-wide UK headquarters office requirement for
120,000 sq ft of space as it looks to consolidate its operations under one roof. The US construction and engineering giant is
currently based in three offices in the capital following its $6bn (£3.8bn) acquisition of rival URS Corporation at the back end of last
year. Its UK headquarters is at MidCity Place in Holborn, where it occupies around 60,000 sq ft of space. The building was the office
of Davis Langdon, which Aecom acquired in 2010. Following the merger with URS, the Fortune 500 company also has bases at St
George’s House in Wimbledon and 6-8 Greencoat Place in the West End. Now, the Los Angeles-based firm has appointed agents at
CBRE to find a suitable location for a consolidated office in the capital. It is in the process of shortlisting buildings that are expected
to fall in the City fringe and Docklands areas of London given the size of the requirement and its keenness to pay a rent of around
£50/sq ft. The company will be looking to relocate in the next 12 months.
The newly refurbished AB1 office building in Aberdeen has secured its first letting, to a government agency. The Oil and Gas
Authority, an executive agency of the Department for Energy and Climate Change, has agreed a deal to move into 12,029 sq ft of
space in the building on Huntly Street, which has been redeveloped by Edinburgh-based Manse.
Natixis Global Asset Management has signed a deal for 16,000 sq ft at One Carter Lane, in the City of London. The French asset
management company has agreed a lease for the entire first floor of the Fubon Life Insurance Company-owned building, which is
located opposite St Paul’s Cathedral. The firm will pay a rent of just over £60/sq ft for the space, which will add to the 100,000 sq ft
it occupies at its current base at Cannon Bridge House.
Bouygues is set to bag a £100m contract to build a new international headquarters for Cambridge University’s exams board.
The contractor has been chosen as preferred bidder by Cambridge Assessment after going head-to-head with Balfour Beatty to land
the major set of works. The development will initially house 2,300 staff but this is expected to climb to 3,000 once complete in
2025.
Wates is set to bag a major refurbishment job in central London with Great Portland Estates. It is understood the contractor is in
negotiations with GPE for the 97,800 sq ft scheme at 148 Old Street, according to sources close to project. The scheme will see the
existing building transformed into 151,700 sq ft of office space. GPE obtained vacant possession on site in May and has a target
completion date of early 2017.
A £24m contract to upgrade and extend ‘The Bower’ office scheme at Stockley Park near Heathrow has gone to ISG. The
contractor will turn the 1980s three-storey property into a 137,000 sq ft Grade A office building. To improve the aesthetics, thermal
performance and efficiency of the building, ISG will build two new wings, adding 20,000 sq ft to the original property, which it said
would be the largest single office floorplate in the Thames Valley. The project is due for completion autumn 2016.
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Schroder UK Real Estate Fund and Stanhope have appointed Lendlease for the first of five office buildings at the £500m Ruskin
Square quarter next to East Croydon Station in London. Work on the 200,000 sq ft office with ground floor shops is just starting
with completion expected in autumn 2016.
Warrington-based Cruden Construction has won a £5m contract to build an office block in nearby Bolton. Cruden is set to move
on site next week to start work on the new four-storey building, which will be the new headquarters for Asons Solicitors. The 4,460
m2 office development, in the All Saints district of Bolton, has been designed by Bolton architect Bradshaw Gass & Hope, which is
taking on architecture, structural engineering, service engineering, quantity surveying, cost control and CDM coordination on the
project. Completion is expected during summer 2016.
Graham Construction has secured a hat-trick of contract wins worth £13.4m as its North of England division continues to grow.
The Salford based Northern division has won new build and refurbishment contracts with the University of Manchester, University
of York and University of Chester. The three contracts fall within the higher education sector. As preferred contractor Graham will
be constructing a new teaching block at the University of York worth £8m. Work starts in July and is expected to complete in January
2016. The three-storey building will provide a new gateway to the Heslington West Campus and consists of a 350-person lecture
theatre and 26 seminar rooms, which can house 20 students per room. The second floor forms a large social learning space with
three seminar rooms which have the flexibility to be opened up to create larger spaces for exams, conferencing and other extracurricular activities. Race Cottam Associates are the architects. Works have also recently commenced on the £3m extension to the
Seaborne Library at the University of Chester. The new two-storey extension includes internal reconfiguration, refurbishment, minor
demolition and diversion/replacement of Mechanical & Electrical services to create new circulation space, communal areas and
office accommodation. This is in addition to the £2.4m refurbishment of Greenwood Block Hall of Residence at Hulme Hall,
University of Manchester, involves intensive refurbishment works of 72 student bedrooms with associated kitchens and bathrooms.
To minimise disruption works will take place during the 10-week summer vacancy period.
Imperial College in London has got the planning green light to build a pioneering biomedical engineering centre at its White City
Campus in west London. Detailed design and construction can now be initiated for the new facility, which is going ahead thanks to
an unprecedented £40m donation from Michael Uren, the founder of cement supplier Civil and Marine. The 13-storey Michael Uren
Biomedical Engineering Research Hub will house research laboratories, an outpatient clinic, a 150-seat auditorium and a series of
social spaces to encourage informal exchange of ideas.
Planning permission has been granted for Newcastle University’s landmark urban science building on the former home of the
Scottish & Newcastle Brewery. The 130,000 sq ft building and its surrounding city area will become a living laboratory underpinning
research to make urban centres more sustainable for future generations. The university is presently tendering for a contractor, with
an announcement due in November.
A developer of luxury retirement villages has held a groundbreaking ceremony to mark construction getting underway on its
latest scheme situated in Aston-on-Trent, Derbyshire. Richmond Villages, part of Bupa, operates as well as develops retirement
villages across the UK, with its latest scheme at Willow Park Way its seventh such scheme. The first residents are expected to move
into the new retirement village from late summer/autumn 2016. Initially, the development will consist of 47 village apartments
intended to offer an independent lifestyle – one- and two-bedroom apartments (with the average size of a two bed being
1,100sq.ft), 30 village suites (one- and two-bedroom) which come with a ‘hotel style’ package to help with all the daily chores, and a
24-hour care home providing nursing and dementia care. Facilities within the village will include a wellness spa with swimming pool
and gym, hair and beauty salon, library, IT room, terrace café, restaurant and garden bar, all set within landscaped grounds with a
croquet lawn.
UKTI Alerts
India – Consultancy services required for masterplanning
Comprehensive Architectural / Consultancy Services including design and planning from concept to completion of the project for the
proposed development of land measuring 30 hectares (approx.) with Smart City features. This full online edition with links is
available at: http://www.businessopportunities.ukti.gov.uk/uktihome/item/913995.html
India - Empanelment for providing comprehensive architectural services
Open only to UK companies who have Principal/Partners/Director with the Council of Architecture (COA) in India, and are present in
India. This full online edition with links is available at: http://www.businessopportunities.ukti.gov.uk/uktihome/item/913997.html
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The Middle East is expected to see an additional 86,000 hotel rooms between 2014 and 2020, according to a report by global
hospitality consultancy HVS. There are currently 130,000 rooms in the region and 11,000 rooms that have not been assigned
completion dates, HVS said in the report titled “2015 Middle East hotel survey peak assessments”. Most of the new inventory in the
region is in Saudi Arabia, where 38,000 hotel rooms are expected to come online, bringing the total to 59,000. The kingdom is
followed by the UAE, with around 26,000 rooms being planned and built. Hilton Worldwide, a US-based hotel chain, has the biggest
pipeline in the region with 20,000 rooms under development, as per the report. Dubai, for instance, is targeting between 140,000
and 160,000 rooms to accommodate 20 million visitors per year by 2020, according to the Department of Tourism and Commerce
Marketing (DTCM). The emirate is developing leisure facilities, which will attract more tourists, including Dubai Parks and Resorts, a
theme park that is set to open in October next year, and Six Flags, slated to open in 2017. The number of tourist arrivals in the
Middle East reached 50 million in 2014, up 3.8 per cent compared with the previous year, HVS said in the report, citing data from
the United Nations World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO). Total contribution of travel and tourism to gross domestic product (GDP)
was up 5.3 per cent last year compared with 2013, according to the report. Contribution to GDP is driven by domestic, leisure
tourism and business tourism spending. Direct contribution to GDP, meanwhile, is expected to contract 1.8 per cent in 2015 due to
regional conflicts, the weaker euro and western economic sanctions against Russia, HVS said, citing data from the World Travel and
Tourism Council (WTTC). However, in the next ten years, the region is likely to see close to 6.4 per cent compound annual growth
rate in direct contribution to GDP. Regional travel and tourism spending is expected to exceed $200 billion within the same period.
Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group has unveiled plans to open a new hotel in Beijing. The new hotel is scheduled to open in 2017 in
the Wangfujing district of the Chinese capital city as part of WF Central, the new mixed-use centre being developed by Wangfu
Central Real Estate Development Company, an affiliated company of Hongkong Land. Located on the top two floors of WF Central,
the Kohn Pedersen Fox-designed hotel will feature garden terraces and two restaurants for guests of the 74 rooms and suites. Other
facilities will include a spa, an indoor swimming pool and a fitness centre.
Carlson Rezidor Hotel Group today announced the signing of Radisson Resort Hosur, in Tamil Nadu, expected to open in 2018
with 120 guest rooms. Carlson Rezidor currently has 117 hotels in operation and under development in India. Its footprint spans 45
cities, including 14 state capitals, and is on track to meet its target of increasing its India portfolio to 170 hotels in operation and
under development by 2020.
Building on the recent openings of the 232-room Wyndham Grand Shenzhen and the 390-room Wyndham Chongqing Yuelai,
Wyndham Hotel Group has announced plans to expand its ever growing China portfolio with the signing of three new Wyndham
Hotels and Resorts® properties. As of March 31, 2015, the company had approximately 900 hotels and more than 100,000 rooms in
the country, with an active development pipeline of more than 135 hotels and over 26,000 rooms. Wyndham Sanya Bay - Located in
the center of the scenic Island of Hainan, Wyndham Sanya Bay will be part of a mixed-use development and feature approximately
400 guestrooms, a fitness center, a business center, a spa and a 2,500 m² recreational area with swimming pool. The hotel, which
will be approximately 10 minutes by car from the Sanya Phoenix International Airport, is scheduled to open in late 2015. Wyndham
Hainan Qingshui Bay Resort - Located along Qingshui Bay and its 12-kilometer tropical coastline known as the “Singing Beach,” the
Wyndham Hainan Qingshui Bay Resort is part of a mixed used development and will feature private seafront beaches and
approximately 200 guestrooms. Other amenities will include a swimming pool, a fitness center, a ballroom and function room, and a
beach bar. The hotel is scheduled to open in late 2017. Wyndham Grand Huangshan Taiping Lake - As the part of a tourism mixeduse development, the lakefront Wyndham Grand Huangshan Taiping Lake will be located on Taling Peninsula, North Shore, Taiping
Lake. The approximately 300-room hotel is expected to cater to leisure, meeting and group travel with three restaurants and 5,000
m² of meeting space consisting of one ballroom and several function rooms. Additional offerings will include a fitness center, a spa
and a swimming pool, among other amenities. The hotel is scheduled to open in early 2019.
AccorHotels has sealed an exclusive partnership with the major Angolan company AAA ACTIVOS LDA, to open 50 hotels (more
than 6,200 rooms) in Angola from luxury to economy between 2015 and 2017. Over the next two years, 50 hotels will be opened
in strategic locations, such as in Luanda, the Angola capital, and the 17 capitals of province: 6 hotels in 2015, 22 in 2016 and 22 in
2017. The offer will cover all segments of the hotel market, from luxury to economy, including midscale. 27 hotels will be operated
under the banner of the economic ibis Styles brand, 22 under that of the midscale Mercure brand, and 1 under the luxury Sofitel
brand.
Carlson Rezidor further strengthens its portfolio in Africa by announcing the Radisson Blu M’Bamou Palace Hotel in Brazzaville,
capital city of the Republic of Congo. The upper upscale property with 178 rooms will be the first internationally branded hotel in
Brazzaville and open in September 2015.
Scandic to Take over Hotel Norge in Bergen, Norway. The hotel, which was built in 1885, is Bergen's oldest hotel and will from the
beginning of the fall of 2016, be completely transformed to claim its place as the top hotel in the city.
Paris - Herzog & de Meuron has won planning permission for its 180m high Tour Triangle, which is set to feature a 120-room
hotel. Backed by property giant Unibail-Rodamco, the skyscraper will also contain a co-working office space and cultural facilities.
The project is located at the heart of the Parc des Expositions site, setback from the surrounding residential areas, in the Porte de
Versailles neighbourhood.
Hilton Worldwide and Icelandair Hotels have unveiled plans for the first Canopy by Hilton set to open in Icelands’s capital
Reykjavik. The Canopy Reykjavik City centre is expected to be the first hotel globally to open under the Canopy by Hilton portfolio,
which launched in October 2014. The hotel is currently under construction on Hverfisgata Street and is slated to open in early 2016.
Canopy Reykjavik | City Centre will accommodate 115 guestrooms and suites with an entirely new interior.
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