The tightening squeeze on North-East office space is forcing companies to swap their city centre properties for out-of-town locations — a trend which has turned one Tyneside complex into Britain’s fastest growing business park outside London.
Already the country’s largest speculative office development outside the capital, with almost one-million square feet of office space built or under construction, Quorum Business Park was built on an enterprise zone site previously occupied by the US circuit board maker Viasystems.
Four years ago Quorum sealed its success with a series of inward investments and high profile lettings. Almost 250,000sq ft of office space was let to six new tenants, among them Tesco Bank, Balfour Beatty and the global information management company Convergys. Since then it has attracted the likes of HM Revenue and Customs, IBM, OSG Shipping, Insurethebox, media and marketing analysts Ebiquity, Aesica Pharaceuticals and the UK’s fourth largest housing provider Home Group.
With Newcastle’s £200m Stephenson Quarter development — and its phase one 35,000sq ft of prestige offices — still a year away, demand is continuing to build from city companies attempting to keep pace with the recovery. For some, like engineering group British Engines and awarding winning educational charity NCFE, relocating to Quorum was the only option.
British Engines, which employs around 1,250 people across its six North-East engineering and manufacturing businesses, sells leading technology products to a global market place. In December last year its central service team moved to Quorum where it now employs over 40 staff.
“In order to facilitate the overall growth of our business we moved two of our group companies, CMP Products and Rotary Power, from their original site at St Peters in Newcastle to new factories in Cramlington and South Shields,” explained British Engines director Richard Dodd. “A key reason for choosing the Quorum base was its perfect location as a hub almost central to both sites.”
NCFE decided to relocate to Quorum’s Q6 building after recruiting 34 new staff members. It has also invested heavily in fitting out four floors of the 50,361sq ft building to accommodate its 195-strong workforce.
David Grailey is the charity’s chief executive. “As NCFE continues to move forward we need to work in an environment that enables us to fulfil our potential as a business and Quorum facilitates this, both in terms of physical space and by enabling us to achieve cost savings through rent reductions,” he explained.
“Our people are at the heart of everything we do which made Quorum an obvious choice for a new home — its transport links are excellent and the space we have acquired, both indoors and out, has improved our staff wellbeing considerably.”
Q6 currently has 5,865sq ft of flexible work space available, which says Quorum’s development director Fergus Trim, has the benefit of several new facilities such as a staff coffee shop and restaurant and a suite of conference rooms. “Q6 is a high-quality building and NCFE has done a great job fitting out its leased floors. I’m sure the remaining space will be snapped up very quickly.”
