Plans for a new headquarters building at Walsall’s £400m Gigaport business and office districthave been given the green light, providing a significant step forward for the scheme.
Jhoots Pharmacy has won consent to build a 20,000 sq ft new head office building on the corner of Littleton Street and Hatherton Street in the West Midlands town.
The SP Faizey Architects-designed scheme will be developed by Jessup Build Develop and sit next to Jhoots existing headquarters building. It will support the firm’s 35 outlets across the UK.
Jessup managing director Clive Jessup said: “This is one of the key locations in Walsall town centre and I am pleased that we have been able to reach an agreement with Walsall Council to take on the site and develop it for the benefit of local businesses such as the Jhoots Pharmacy Group.”
Work is due to start on site in June 2014 with completion by summer 2015.
Plans for the Gigaport project originally won consent in 2008 and included a 57-acre hi-tech business quarter in the town, comprising 1.4m sq ft of offices, a 43,000 sq ft data centre, a 43,000 sq ft hotel, 247,600 sq ft of live/work space and a 64,500 sq ft health and sports facility. It will also include premises for the new Walsall college.
Work on the project had slowed due to the economic downturn, however Walsall council has also now appointed contractor Jager Associates to carry out remediation works on the Gigaport site in Wisemore to create an “oven-ready” site for office development.
