Scarborough Group International successfully delivered the latest office workspace at B3 Thorpe Park, a seven-storey, 12,367-square-metre asset with two floors of additional underground parking space, winning it a CoStar Impact Award.
It secured a prelet of the entire building to credit-management company Lowell in 2021. That agreement is the largest single out-of-town office deal recorded in West Yorkshire.
Measures to slash the property’s embodied carbon footprint included the use of 75% post-consumer recycled aluminium in the building’s envelope and up to 50% reduction in the use of concrete for pile foundations and building slabs. In addition, 25% of the steel used in the structure is from local, recycled content.
Adam Varley, head of commercial, SGI, said the office building has “industry-leading, low-carbon features" and "not only delivers an exemplary building that we can all be proud of but also helps to set a new benchmark for future buildings at Thorpe Park Leeds,” while Andrew Hurcomb, GMI Construction Group’s divisional managing director, Yorkshire, added it “exemplifies the levelling up agenda representing, as it does, a huge investment in the infrastructure necessary to support and contribute to Yorkshire’s resilient and growing economy”.
About the project: The biggest property transaction in the Northern Powerhouse region over the last two years.
What the judges said: Michael Norris, senior development manager, Queensberry, said the asset contained “good sustainable consideration in the base-build construction [that reduced] the embodied carbon through the use of recycled materials within the building fabric and structure,” while Stuart Howie, principal, development, land at Avison Young, said, “in challenging conditions for office development, the combination of scale, quality and environmental, social and governance credentials made it a worthy winner”.
They made it happen: Mark Jackson, developer, and Adam Varley, surveyor, Scarborough Group Leeds.
