Agenda item

Presentation of the Director of Property Services and Development

The Business, Economy and Enterprise Scrutiny Board (3) received a presentation of the Director of Property Services and Development that provided an update on the progress on the building of Two Friargate, part of the comprehensive regeneration of Friargate. The Cabinet Member for Jobs and Regeneration was invited to attend the meeting for this item.

The presentation highlighted the following:

•  £51.2m WMCA grant was awarded in January 2021 to help fund the next phase of office buildings

•  The Friargate Joint Venture (JV) was formally established in Feb 2019 – the JV was the landowner of the Friargate sites

•  The City Council approved £17m funding for the Two Friargate scheme in September 2020

•  The Contractor was appointed and started on site in December 2020

•  The City Council was purchasing the land and the Two Friargate building from the Friargate JV

•  The building would be completed and ready for handover to the Council in Autumn 2022

•  The building would be a best in class office building in Coventry and comparable with the best the region had to offer

•  The building was next to UK’s fastest growing rail station and 4 million people live within 25 miles of the site

•  There would be 135,000 sqft of lettable office space across 12 floors (c.12.5% bigger than One Friargate) and space on the ground floor for a high-quality food or convenience retailer

•  The building was targeting BREEAM “Excellent” (for environmental sustainability) and WIRED Platinum (for digital connectivity and resilience)

•  Work would be undertaken to promote and market the building, and the city of Coventry, to private and public sector occupiers

•  The project was developing and implementing management, security, waste, utilities, front of house and cleaning strategies, with an all inform service charge approach

•  Lettings were likely to be secured 12 months from completion of the building onwards

•  Set up and mobilisation would be ready for opening and occupation

•  All was influenced by COVID context

Members also received a video of the Friargate Development Timeline and requested that the Weblink to the timeline be emailed to the Board. The Scrutiny Co-ordinator undertook to do this.

The Board questioned officers, received responses and discussed the following issues:

·  The importance of lessons learned from the building of Friargate One – how maintenance could be managed and optimised going forward, the build quality, what worked well. The tender for the project included the requirements of lessons learned.

·  Carbon footprint – Friargate Two was being built to a high environmental standard and environmental sustainability accreditation was being sought for the building

·  The total project fund of £69m (£52m guaranteed grant funding and £17m Council funding) would ensure that the project would be completed - this included the land purchase in addition to the build

·  A marketing Strategy was being prepared and specialist marketing agents would maximise marketing through social media, advertising, events, etc

·  A Hoarding Strategy, which would link to the City of Culture, was being prepared for the site to ensure it promoted the City of Coventry and its heritage

·  The impact of Covid had not suggested that there would be an impact of letting the space with Estate Agents advising that office space was still required

·  Discussions are on-going with potential occupants of the building

·  The ground floor would be available for a high-quality food outlet – it would be promoted to a number of potential occupiers who would be required to meet specific standards with the successful company selected through an application process. This would be an operational decision

·  The construction contract had been agreed during the Covid crisis with issues associated with the pandemic taken into account when identifying timescales - a target date for competition of the project of 2022 was a contractual element. 

RESOLVED that the Business, Economy and Enterprise Scrutiny Board (3) notes the presentation on the progress on the building of Two Friargate and has no further recommendations to make.