Completed Vodafone building

St Modwen, the UK’s leading regeneration specialist, has successfully completed the construction of its largest new build commercial office building in Stoke on Trent, specifically designed for occupier, Vodafone UK.

The landmark building at Etruria Valley Business Park represents a major investment in the area,. It has been developed by St. Modwen’s joint venture company with Stoke-on-Trent City Council, Stoke-on-Trent Regeneration Ltd., which was formed in 1993 to bring about major regeneration and is run by St Modwen’s regional team based in Stoke.

“This is a truly architecturally striking modern building in a prominent position on the latest phase of the Etruria Valley development.”

“We are delighted to have completed the largest purpose built office building St. Modwen has ever created in North Staffordshire.” commented Mike Herbert, St. Modwen’s North Staffordshire regional director.  “This is a truly architecturally striking modern building in a prominent position on the latest phase of the Etruria Valley development.  The location of major companies, such as Vodafone, consolidates Stoke-on-Trent and the Etruria site as a primary location.”

The impressive 90,000 sq ft building includes some 450 tonnes of structural steel enabling the creation of a spacious and modern call centre that is virtually the length of two jumbo jets from nose to tail.

Sustainability was a key part of St Modwen’s design brief and the building has achieved a BREEAM ‘very good’ rating.  It includes 100 per cent recyclable metal cladding, automatic taps, automatic lighting complemented by high natural day lighting levels, solar shading and a cantilevered winged shaped roof form that reduces solar gain and cooling loads as well as allowing rainwater to be collected to operate the toilets.
Vodafone has now completed a 16 year lease of the building and the investment has been sold to a private investor at £10.7 m.  This represents an initial yield of 8.05 per cent.

Spanning 125 acres, Etruria Valley Business Park is the site of the former Shelton Steel Works which has been extensively reclaimed by St Modwen and is an expansion of St. Modwen’s highly successful Festival Park scheme.  It is being developed over two phases, in a joint venture with Corus. Phase One, a 35 acre site has already been completed with a total of 167,000 sq ft of office space, alongside a further 148,000 sq ft of industrial / trade park space.  Two site. Extensive site reclamation works were completed in 2008 and the 143,500 sq ft of development this year includes, the new Head Office for the Hanley Economic Building Society and a factory for Wade Ceramics Ltd.  Further development opportunities are available at the Business Park.