MILTON PARK TRANSFORMS FORMER OFFICE BUILDING INTO COLLABORATIVE WORKSPACE

140 Eastern Avenue at Milton Park is currently being transformed into Oxfordshire’s largest collaborative workspace: the Bee House and work is nearing completion.

A total of 51 office suites will range from 100 sq ft to 3,000 sq ft along with The Hive café with kitchen facilities, business lounge, meeting and exhibition space and a 150-seat conference space, cycle parking, shower facilities and electric vehicle charging points.

Once completed, the Bee House is expected to provide capacity for around 550 people.

EY gets ready for hybrid working

Global consultancy EY is relocating to new o ce space in Reading designed for the firm’s new hybrid working model.

EY is moving to R+ on Blagrave Street which keeps the firm’s location in Reading city centre, close to key transport links. It will provide more areas for collaboration and techenabled meeting rooms, along with workstations, team areas and informal seating.

Last year, EY said it would be transitioning to a hybrid working model in the UK, enabling individuals to split their time between the o ce, client sites, or working from home. This builds on the firm’s current

The environmental credentials of the building, which will be rated BREEAM Excellent, will include a planting scheme to include wildflowers and multi-stemmed trees and planting to attract bees and bench seating for outdoor meetings. The building will also be powered by a workspace app meaning that the space will be efficient to use both in terms of booking refreshments, rooms and space and controlling light and heating.

The Bee House is part of Milton Park’s pioneering masterplan for how the park will sustainably grow to create 10,000 new high value science and technology jobs and respond effectively to the climate emergency.

Philip Campbell, MEPC commercial director, Milton Park said: “By significantly refurbishing an outdated building, we are able to provide co-working memberships and small to medium office space with short term flexible licences for the offices. With our Innovation Centre as full as it can be and the way in which we all work changing, we are seeing strong demand from people looking for a new way to work.

“The name for the Bee House derives from it being Milton Park’s spirit animal as a worker which thrives as part of a community and is important to the environment.”

Trinity House on Oxford Business Park bought by global developer

Breakthrough Properties, a leading global developer of life sciences real estate backed by a joint venture of American commercial estate company Tishman Speyer and Bellco Capital, has bought the 1.7 acre Trinity House site in Oxford.

culture of flexible working, which had been in place for many years prior to the pandemic.

EY has signed an initial five-year lease on the 25,000 sq ft of o ce accommodation, which is located over two floors, and expects to move in by the Spring.

Located at the gateway of the 88-acre Oxford Business Park, Breakthrough will build a Class A office and lab environment within one of the UK’s fastest growing life sciences clusters.

Dan Belldegrun, CEO of Breakthrough Properties, said: “Oxford has long enjoyed the highest calibre academic research and talent driving innovation and discovery. What has been lacking is the life science infrastructure and ecosystems to properly support that growth.”