The completion date for Leicester’s latest grade A office scheme has been revealed.
The new building off Vaughan Way in the city is part of a £50 million mixed use development that has already helped changed the city skyline.
Developers are now talking to potential tenants for the 33,000 sq ft office block which will be completed by December 19.
The Great Central Square complex – just across the inner ring road from Highcross shopping centre – also includes a 10-storey Novotel and six-storey Adagio aparthotel, with 250 rooms between them and a 120-seat, independently run restaurant.
They will open in the new year.
A Lane7 bowling alley in the Victorian former Central Railway Station, at the back end of the scheme, will also open in the new year.
The new hotel will create around 70 jobs, with more at peak times, while the office block has space for between 2-400 people.
Joseph Murphy, a director of Leicester-based Charles Street Buildings, the property investment company behind the multi-million pound project, said it had been designed to suit either a single occupier or as many as eight different businesses.
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He said interest in the Grade A office building was already healthy, and said finding the right occupier or occupiers was key to ensuring the scheme helped benefit to the wider city.
He said: “They can provide the sustained footfall which surrounding retail and leisure operators depend on.
“Leicester has been in need of this kind of high-specification office space for some time.
“Great Central Square is still a building site but by Christmas you will finally be able to walk through.
“We have owned the site for many years and have had a number of plans for it in the past that did not come off.
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“This project has been around five years in the planning and started when the council produced their draft plans for Leicester’s Waterside area.
“We started thinking about the sort of development that was needed that could benefit the city.”
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He said one issue was the five crossing points pedestrians previously needed to take to get from Highcross across the busy ring road.
That had been addressed by what he called a “super crossing” allowing people to walk straight across.
He said: “Pedestrian connectivity has always been important to get through the site as well, and through to the Waterside area.
“So there will be a new triangular square providing a new public realm.
“None of it would have been possible without a close working relationship with Leicester City Council.
“There is a better vibe in Leicester right now and it feels like a better place to do things.
“There has been a lack of Grade A offices, which gives us space for growth.
“Most important has been that there is actual occupier interest and anticipated occupier interest.
“And we have always been committed to a high quality development – if we had built an ugly Novotel I don’t think it would perform as well.”
Mr Murphy said the family business was set up in the 1940s by his grandfather, and today had a portfolio covering 3 million sq ft, with 80 per cent of that in Leicestershire.
He said next on the drawing board were plans to develop an 8 acre site at the back of the scheme taking in the old Great Central Railway viaducts, which was being called Project Charlotte.
That would include more offices, leisure space and public realm.