Developers banking on permission to rebuild old Abbey House.
The former Santander building in Milton Keynes’ Grafton Gate will be completely refurbished into offices and ‘community space’ following a planning application by developers.
The building, known previously as Abbey House, became the headquarters for the Spanish bank, but they have since moved over the road to Unity Place. The offices will now become known as 'Verve'.
Developers Osborne & Co are ‘re-imagining’ the building with plans to strip it back to frame and create 225,000 square feet of offices – from small start-ups, through small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), up to large corporate occupiers.
The offices will be set around an internal street, housed in a substantial atrium between the two blocks. This internal street and atrium totals 8,500 sq ft of shared amenity, break out and auditorium space.
There will also be room for visitors, and facilities for food and drink outlets when the building opens late next year. It will be the first building accessible from Milton Keynes Rail Station after the new Unity Place.
The redevelopment of the building will target BREEAM sustainability ratings and aims to save approximately 40% of the carbon emissions by retaining as much of the existing building as possible when compared against a new-build equivalent.
Officials hope that planning permission will be forthcoming in May which would allow developers to start putting construction teams on site by the summer.
