One of the North-East’s biggest enterprise companies has relaunched its first office development outside its “home” county.
Arch: The Northumberland Development Company was established by Northumberland County Council as an arms-length venture to attract capital investment, sponsor brownfield regeneration projects and create jobs within the county.
Earlier this year it increased its property portfolio with the acquisition of three office sites — at Wansbeck, Durham City and Seaham — from the flexible workspace provider Biz Space. The London-based company, which still has more than 100 nationwide commercial and industrial premises, decided to sell-off the North-East developments to “rationalise” its holdings.
Now, after a major refurbishment, Arch has re-opened its first business hub in County Durham. The Central Workspace at Pity Me three miles from Durham City, has been re-designed to attract fledgling businesses to its high-quality office suites and incubator units and improve the facilities for its long-term tenants.
The Workspace, which offers 25 individual offices ranging in size up to 2,400 sq ft, also contains meeting and conference rooms for up to 30 people. Virtual offices and hot desks are also available, as are secretarial services.
The upgrade has also included external signage and landscaping, a new reception area and break out rooms and has won immediate praise from tenants.
“It looks amazing,” commented Russell Collingham, from software consultancy VoxDev Ltd.
“It took a great deal of vision to plan and see through these changes. We have been in the building since February, 2002, and Arch is the first owner from four that has actually cared about the building and the people who work here.”
Peter McIntyre is Arch group managing director. “We are a well-established and highly regarded landlord offering a wide ranging property portfolio and it seemed a natural fit to acquire the Biz Space portfolio and export Arch’s unique customer service to other businesses in the North-East,” he explained.
“We are delighted to have a Workspace in the south of the region,” he added. “Arch understands the diverse needs for business and therefore we wanted to invest in our new building and in those businesses that are based there.”
