Following approval yesterday by the Board of Directors, ScottishPower has today outlined plans to develop a new 14 storey office headquarters in Glasgow City Centre. The 220,000sq ft development will support the Company’s continued UK growth, acting as a hub for delivering the significant planned UK investment over the coming years.
ScottishPower anticipates work on the new office complex, which will be located on the corner of St Vincent Street and India Street, will start in 2013 with completion by late 2015. Set to accommodate approximately 1500 ScottishPower people, the project will be the largest single occupier office development in Glasgow for approximately 25 years.
ScottishPower also announced that Helical Bar plc with their Scottish based development partner Dawn Developments Ltd has been selected as the preferred developer for the new HQ, following a competitive tender process. A detailed negotiation process will now start in order to finalise the details of the project.
As part of the development, ScottishPower’s current office locations in Cathcart, Yoker and Falkirk will be taken on by Helical Bar, who will seek opportunities for future redevelopment of these sites. ScottishPower has already secured the land for the new development on St Vincent Street, and will take a long-term lease as single occupier of the office building once the development is completed.
Ignacio Galan , ScottishPower Chairman , said: “The energy sector in Scotland and across the UK is one that can help to boost the economy and offer highly skilled employment for thousands of people. Our plans in the UK in the coming years require an office complex that is fit for purpose to deliver and manage these investments.
“Following the integration between Iberdrola and ScottishPower in 2007, we have invested £4billion in the UK and made a commitment that Glasgow would remain as the central location for our company in the UK. This new development will ensure Glasgow remains home to ScottishPower’s UK headquarters for the long term and will be a hub for delivering the £10billion of planned investment over the coming years.
“Recently there has been significant progress in the design of the UK’s energy model. In Networks we have regulatory stability guaranteeing sufficient and predictable returns for our investments that will total more than £6billion in the next few years and enable the most important upgrades to the electricity network in more than half a century. In Renewables, we continue to develop some of the largest onshore and offshore renewable projects anywhere in the world.”
Keith Anderson , Chief Corporate Officer at ScottishPower , said: “We currently have an ageing office portfolio that is no longer suitable to match the growth in our business, particularly in renewable energy, engineering, traditional generation and expanded customer offering. Our new office will be modern and functional, and will bring together many ScottishPower people from across the business to be located in a single central site.”
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Offshore WIND Staff, July 19, 2012; Image: ScottishPower