Yell directs new HQ to Green Park

The Yell Group has turned its back on Reading town centre for an out-of-town business park. The company, which publishes the Yellow Pages and internet search engine Yell.com, will move its UK headquarters to PRUPIM’s Green Park on the outskirts of Reading. The directory publisher has agreed a sublet of 150,000 sq ft from Cisco Systems at its 300 South Oak Way building at Green Park. It will pay around £30 per sq ft for the space. Cisco has owned more than 500,000 sq ft of redundant space at Green Park since 2000, when it took 1.25m sq ft at rents of between £28 and £32 per sq ft. The 180-acre business park beat shortlisted rival Kier Property’s and Invista Real Estate’s 600,000 sq ft Reading Central One in the town centre for the requirement. Sources said Yell’s decision had come down to the building being immediately available. Although Kier and Invista plan to start work on the 245,000 sq ft first phase of their scheme later this year, the project will not be completed until 2009. The deal is the largest letting in the western corridor since electronics giant Siemens signed for 183,000 sq ft at Development Securities’ and Invista’s Frimley Square in September last year. Yell will move out of two Reading town-centre offices: the 75,000 sq ft Yellow Pages House at Queens Walk, where its lease expires in 2009; and the 54,000 sq ft Bridge Street Plaza, where its lease runs until 2012. Yell’s decision to relocate to Green Park is the second major letting at the park for PRUPIM. Earlier this month, the fund manager secured New Jersey-based Wyeth Pharmaceuticals as a tenant for a 100,000 sq ft purpose-built complex. A Thames Valley agent said: “After a tough period there are good signs in the western corridor thanks to a fresh cycle of major occupiers looking to move out of old space into new-generation buildings.” Jones Lang LaSalle and Hicks Baker advised Cisco; Lambert Smith Hampton acted for Yell.