COUNCILLORS in Coventry have announced plans to start building a long-delayed speculative development.
The council cabinet is set to agree funding worth £17m to start building a second office building at Friargate later this year.
This funding is in addition to the £51.2m grant Coventry Council received from the West Midlands Combined Authority in 2018 to build Friargate One.
In a statement Coventry Council said: “This second building would contain 134,000 sqft of lettable, adaptable, state of the art office space which would be on par with the best the region has to offer. In addition to this office space, there will be space available on the ground for a café or restaurant to occupy, accessible to the public.
“A second office building at Friargate is part of the wider plans to expand the Friargate development and to make it and the city an even more attractive place for businesses to invest in.
“It’s estimated that the scheme will create 700 jobs during the construction phase of the scheme, with many more jobs created when the building is operational.”
Coun Jim O’Boyle, Cabinet Member for Jobs and Regeneration, said: “At a time when the economy is struggling, we need to do all we can to support new investment and job creation. This building at Friargate will be situated right next to one of the busiest and fastest growing stations in the UK, making it a really attractive proposition for businesses.
“I believe that if we build this second building, we will see more business investing in our city and discovering what a fantastic place it is to do business in.
“In addition to all of this, this building is going to be a real opportunity to create jobs for Coventry people. This is always an incredibly important aspect of any development to us but even more so with the impacts of COVID-19 on the job market. So, rest assured that we will be having discussions about how we maximise opportunities for local people in the construction and operation of this building.”
The original Friargate scheme planned for ‘up to 15,000 jobs’ at the 37-acre site has been more than a decade in the pipeline, despite annual international attempts by the council to attract private sector tenants.
The council has not confirmed if potential tenants have been identified for the second phase of the office development.
Commenting on designs for Friargate Two, Robert Maxwell, partner at architects Allies and Morrison, said: ’The second commercial office building in our Friargate masterplan complements the form of Friargate One.
“The difference though is in its facade treatment, where the fenestration rhythm is adjusted from a double storey to a squarer, single storey proportion, expressed using a slim precast concrete grid.”
