Plans have been submitted to turn Reading International Business Park (RIBP) into the premier office location on the M4 corridor.

Tristan Capital Partners which bought the 375,000 sq ft development at J11 of the M4 this year, along with its asset management partner Alchemy, plans a major refurbishment of the building.

RIBP, completed by MCI Worldcom (now Verizon) in 2001, has just six tenants (including Verizon) and 180,000 sq ft of vacant space.

The planned work includes internal refurbishment, the terracotta panels on the outside given a new colour, a new parking deck and moving the restaurant from an external building known as The Dot, into the main building.

The Dot and nearby Little Lea Cottage, a listed 17th Century farmhouse, could have new life as places of wellness and socialising.

The Dot will become a multi-functional space for meetings, presentations, social and wellness events including yoga, while Little Lea Cottage could become either a health centre to support the wellness aims of the scheme, a stand alone office or overnight accommodation for overseas visitors.

A new parking deck is planned alongside the M4 along with car charging points added to the existing car park and there will be landscaping of the outside areas

The design and access statement by architects Buckley Gray Yeoman, part of a team which includes Carter Jonas as planners and Ramboll as structural engineers, states: “Tristan Capital Partners’ and Alchemy’s vision for this project is to turn Reading International into the premier business park on the M4 corridor.

“The building will become an aspirational place to work and a ‘home from home’ for between 2,500 and 3,000 workers.

“The property will not only undergo a physical transformation to create high quality, contemporary office space, but also deliver a market leading tenant amenity and soft services whilst also ensuring that the building performs to the highest standards possible in terms of sustainability and wellness.

“The scheme intends to be an exemplar of contemporary refurbishment and repositioning in the business park market.”

Image: Andrew Smith / Reading International Business Park

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