£2.5m investment sees large, ex-HMRC Sunderland building transformed

A large Sunderland office building that was home to HMRC for a quarter-of-a-century has been sold and undergone a radical refurbishment to transform it into modern, hybrid offices.

North West based commercial property investors, Kingscrown Group, snapped up the 36,000 sq. ft. Waterside House from previous owners Topland Group and has invested significantly to remodel and refit the building, which is now ready to occupy.

Knight Frank and Connect Property have been appointed as joint agents for the building which has views of the River Wear and is based on Sunderland Enterprise Park. Neighbouring office occupiers include Berghaus, TSB, Sunderland NHS and Sunderland City Council, Avant Homes and Taylor Wimpey.

The new interior has been designed for an evolved, post-pandemic business world and includes office suites, meeting rooms and break-out spaces and kitchen areas to suit a variety of different sized businesses.

Director of Kingscrown Group, Daniel Pollock said: “We acquired this property because we could see it had enormous potential. It was built specifically for HMRC which occupied it until 2017 and the whole building has always been open-plan. We’ve broken it up to create space that aligns with current market demand and we are already in talks with a number of occupiers.”

The design, by Standing Space and installed by main contractor Tech Cr8, takes its inspiration from Sunderland’s shipbuilding heritage and has an industrial feel with a blue colour palette to represent the nearby water.

The building, which benefits from 185 car parking spaces, EV charging points and 24/7 secure access for tenants, has offices on the ground floor from 250 sq. ft. to 2,288 sq. ft., with options to take larger spaces up to 25,000 sq ft on the first and second floors.

“We’ve very quickly had a pleasing level of interest in the new offices which reflects the quality of the fit-out, its affordable location and the fact that the city, with its significant investment programme at Riverside Sunderland, is on the up,” said partner at Knight Frank, Patrick Matheson.

Kingscrown Group specialise in breathing new life into commercial buildings and own a diverse portfolio of high quality residential and commercial properties based in the North of England, including a number of developments in Teesside.

By Mark Adair – Correspondent, Bdaily

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