Beaufort Homes, Redrow Homes and JJ Gallagher have submitted final bids for the 2ha (4.94-acre) Regent Circus site in Swindon town centre. Three other short-listed developers are still considering making a final bid.
The site, owned by Swindon college and Swindon council, is key to the council’s Central Area Strategy for the town’s regeneration, formulated in its 30-year vision document.
The council has earmarked the site for a landmark building that will serve as a gateway to the town centre, and has stipulated that bidders must underwrite the £4m needed to relocate Swindon college’s facilities to the North Star town centre campus site by 2003. The sum is thought to have deterred some of the short-listed developers.
Submissions are likely to be for mixed-use schemes of at least 300 shops and leisure, including a multiplex cinema.
Beaufort Homes’ land and planning director Ian Thomas said: “The site does not become available until 2004, so it is difficult at this stage to be too precise about the commercial content. We could be facing a completely different market in three years’ time.”
The Regent Circus site is being marketed by Mark Wightman, a partner at Dreweatt Neate’s Swindon office.
Beaufort already has one scheme under way in Swindon, a residential development called Plaza 21, and has just redesigned its second town centre scheme, a three-block, 10-storey building comprising 189 flats called Phoenix Gate.
EGi News 11/07/01
