Havelock Place - part of the building work shown in blue, areas in pink relate to future development.
Havelock Place – building the next stage
Construction has started on the next step in the regeneration of Hastings town centre. The office scheme – to be named Havelock Place – is now under way in the Priory Quarter business district. Priory Quarter is breathing new life into the town centre with the influx of new commerce, office workers and students. It is just two minutes’ walk from station, bus terminus, shopping centre and seafront, writes Chris Cormack.
Havelock Place will comprise 24,192 sq ft of high quality offices over five storeys. The property is intended to attract expanding companies and secure significant jobs – with the capacity to accommodate over 350 employees. In the 80,000 sq ft of offices and associated retail already developed, firms such as Saga Insurance, Bibby Financial Services, Tescos, New Career Skills and several solicitors have moved in.
Vinci Construction is building the scheme on behalf of the non-profit East Sussex economic development company, Sea Change Sussex. The site, which replaces run-down terraced houses, is next to One Priory Square – the 44,883 sq ft, six-storey offices recently developed by Sea Change and now occupied by Saga, bringing 800 jobs to Hastings.
Havelock Place - artist's impression
Vinci started construction with initial piling work this week to set the foundations for Havelock Place. The firm expects to complete the building project next summer. Sea Change is already in discussions with potential occupiers and is inviting further pre-let enquiries. The regeneration company could let the whole building to a single occupier, or let separate offices ranging from a 1,353 sq ft ground floor unit to floors of up to 4,532 sq ft. A recent study found the district to be the best value business location in the South East. The Havelock Place scheme has been designed by Proctor & Matthews Architects.
It has several distinct architectural elements. A layered masonry façade with colonnade will run along Havelock Road. The predominant material up to third floor level will be brick with perforated panels. The upper two storeys will be stepped back in the form of a glazed pavilion.Sea Change plans to follow this project with the development of a further, adjoining 37,000 sq ft office building.
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4 Comments
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Dear Peter
Some points from the author:
I already mentioned some Lacuna Place tenants in my article. Please also note that the completion date of 2008 means that Sea Change has achieved these lettings during the worst depression in my living memory and I go back 63 years.
Saga report that they have 350 employees in Hastings and the number is still growing towards the longer term target of 800, for whom accommodation is available.
I can attest that Saga employment is quality employment, as I know some women who have turned their lives around from being benefits dependant single parents to being significant earners.
As someone who has worked in retail since the early 90s, I think the Hastings retail sector is surprisingly buoyant given the circumstances and I am sure the shops are appreciated by the office workers.
Dear Brian
I appreciate your comments on aesthetic grounds, although I regard them as pleasant without being outstanding. I think it is more important that they are pleasant environments to work in, and I think the building industry have made huge advances in this since the awful 1960s office blocks. I would be grateful if someone who works in these offices would comment. I think if I landed a job there I would be well pleased!
Comment by Chris Cormack — Friday, Jul 5, 2013 @ 16:21
These reactions are a perfect reason to publish. More more….
Comment by Nick Weekes — Friday, Jul 5, 2013 @ 08:47
Why publish this rubbish? The first phase of this grandiose scheme is called Lacuna Place, there is 22,600 sq ft of office space in Lacuna Place, not one part of which has been let since completion in 2008. Saga do not employ 800 people in One Priory Square. Less than 300 people work at Saga in Hastings. It’s easy to check, or is Hastings Online Times another sucker for this stuff? One poster at the site reads ‘Further 37,000 sq ft of offices to follow. Space for over 900 more jobs’, where do they reckon these jobs will come from? And they’re building shops, when shops all over town are closing. Just don’t get me started on what it all looks like.
Comment by Peter Dace — Thursday, Jul 4, 2013 @ 18:54
The building looks like another dreary glass, brick, steel and reinforced concrete box with all right angles. We find these building all over England and they are incredible boring. They speak nothing of the town they occupy. They are formulaic and bring down the energy of the site.
Why can’t we be at least a little adventurist? Are we the ‘play it safe’ council? I think so. No wonder we didn’t win the City of Culture with stuff like this being built.
Come on planners and architects, show some courage.
Comment by Brian — Thursday, Jul 4, 2013 @ 18:01