Argent Related today reveals the first three office buildings at Brent Cross Town, setting a new standard for workspace in London and bringing together businesses who will benefit from their co-location. It follows the recent announcement of the vision for the £5 Bn, 180-acre North London neighbourhood, creating a new park town for a future London.
The design of London’s next major office destination responds to the new ways of working and is embedded in an ethos of quality of life for everyone working, living and visiting Brent Cross Town. The offices are uniquely located next to 50 acres of parks and playing fields along with 6,700 new homes, restaurants, leisure, shops, sport facilities, schools and student accommodation.
At Brent Cross Town, occupiers and their customers and employees will be able to enjoy workspace with four purposeful benefits:
1. A value network
This first 550,000 sq ft of office space at Brent Cross Town will bring together innovative companies, academic organisations, start-ups and scale-ups to create a new, market-leading business ecosystem that on completion will total some 3m sq ft of space for c. 25,000 workers. The ecosystem will bring together a range of sectors who share a desire to be part of a network greater than their own and hold common values of championing quality of life and sustainability.
2. Connections to leading knowledge clusters
Served by the new Brent Cross West station that connects to King’s Cross St Pancras in 12-minutes, and the Northern line via Brent Cross underground station, Brent Cross Town is located at the centre of a ‘golden triangle’ between the UK’s most powerful knowledge clusters. To the south in central London are the life-science, tech and creative businesses that form the King’s Cross – Euston ‘Knowledge Quarter’ and Tech City at Old Street, while to the north there is the Oxford-Cambridge Arc that is home to market leading organisations in engineering, bio-med, pharmaceuticals and technology. Brent Cross Town is ideally positioned between these established locations to attract businesses seeking to draw on their networks and their global recognition and talent.
3. A flourishing workforce
Brent Cross Town will facilitate businesses in putting their employees’ wellbeing first, a vital part of a strategy to attract and retain the best talent, through its ‘Project Play’ initiative which includes providing access to 50 acres of green landscaped parks and playing fields, as well as the creation of new sport and leisure facilities.
Argent Related has made a pledge to deliver a new North London town where all can flourish including businesses and employees. Together with the University of Manchester and Buro Happold, Argent Related has developed a pioneering study to measure individual and social wellbeing. This ‘Flourishing Index’ will give organisations based at Brent Cross Town valuable insight into the wellbeing and productivity of their employees.
4. Net zero carbon workspaces
Brent Cross Town has pledged to deliver a net zero carbon town by 2030, creating healthy working environments and supporting the sustainability agendas of its occupiers.
It has partnered with Vattenfall, a leading European energy services company, to provide a reliable and affordable zero carbon heating network, with a view to removing all CO2-emitting sources. Brent Cross Town will also reduce embodied carbon by using cutting edge timber construction technologies in its office buildings.
The first three buildings are positioned around a new main square and adjacent to the entrance of the new Brent Cross West station that will be completed in 2022.
Number 2 Brent Cross Town is set to be a factory for new ideas and innovation. Its design by HawkinsBrown architects has 103,000 sq ft of flexible floorplates, allowing start-up and scale-up businesses to become part of a collaborative community of creators. The seven-metre-high ground floor space is accessible to the public, encouraging residents and visitors to engage with the work inside through events and exhibitions. This building has a timber structure and will use zero carbon heating and cooling systems.
Number 3 Brent Cross Town is designed by ShedKM architects and provides 221,000 sq ft of office space, with an expansive double height reception offering easy access from the station entrance. Design features include a timber floor structure, flexible open floorplates leading onto balconies and a striking warehouse-style roof pavilion with wonderful terraces and far-reaching views of the parks and Hampstead Heath beyond.
Number 4 is Brent Cross Town’s beacon timber-framed building designed by Studio Egret West architects, providing 250,000 sq ft of thoughtfully considered, flexible and well-lit floorplates, with a top-floor ‘lantern’ feature and a generous wrap-around rooftop balcony with panoramic views over the city. If required, numbers 3 and 4 can be connected to provide c. 500,000 sq ft of space, with expansive c. 45,000 sq ft floorplates. Their position at the gateway to Brent Cross Town suits major organisations with an outward-looking focus who value easy links to both central London and the rest of the UK.
Argent Related brings extensive experience developing award-winning commercial space. Key developments that members of the company have led include London’s creative neighbourhood at King’s Cross, with Google, Facebook and Universal Music among its occupiers, and a total portfolio of circa 37m sq ft of existing and planned prime offices across the US including Hudson Yards in New York.
Research commissioned by Argent Related to understand sentiment around the places where we live and work showed 52% of people had missed going into an office during the COVID pandemic, with 63% of the UK workforce wanting to live closer to work and 57% wanting to work somewhere that feels like a proper town, with shops and parks.
Nick Searl, Partner of Argent Related and Joint-Lead of Brent Cross Town, says, “We believe the future of great work lies in collaboration, and that our cities need to provide high-quality space for employees and businesses to come together. Brent Cross Town will be created to enable a better work-life balance, to encourage active and outdoor lifestyles, while providing places for innovation, mentoring and meeting of minds that cannot be achieved working from home. We remain confident in the requirement for physical office space that can flex and evolve with the requirements of its occupiers.”
Ken Wong, COO and Director of International Development, Related, said, “As the nature of work changes, Grade-A offices in connected communities will become prime and the space we are delivering at Brent Cross Town will create a new ecosystem for business. Brent Cross Town offers a competitive advantage to organisations who understand that employee quality of life is vitally important to productivity and to the overall health of their business.”
Councillor Daniel Thomas, Leader of Barnet Council, said: “Brent Cross Town is an exciting development for Barnet. Its connectivity to the rest of the UK will help attract world-class businesses and talent to the borough, while boosting skills and employment locally. Our new 180-acre park town has been designed so businesses are supported by open spaces, community facilities, retail and new homes; responding to changing behaviours towards living and working.”
