Regent Centre is a large business park and residential complex in Gosforth, Newcastle upon Tyne, England. The business park is home to a variety of companies, including banking group Virgin Money whose Head Office is located on the site. The centre has its own transport interchange with a station on the Tyne & Wear Metro and integrated bus station.
North British Properties started to build Regent Centre in 1970 and finished in 1981; at completion it was the largest office complex in Europe, covering a total area of 11 acres (4.5 ha). [1] The land is the former site of the Regent Pit of the Coxlodge Colliery. The centre unveiled a new logo and identity in late 2008; the centre's slogan is "Better for Business".
The current owner-developer is Omnia Offices who bought the complex in 2015 and are converting some of the office space into residential apartments. [2] The previous owner was Kennedy Wilson Europe Real Estate who purchased it along with the rest of the Fordgate Group's Jupiter Portfolio in June 2014. [3] [4]
Virgin Money and LNER have offices in the Regent Centre. Former tenants of the Regent Centre are HM Revenue & Customs as well as the Driver & Vehicle Licensing Agency, Health & Safety Executive and the Labour Party. [5] In addition, The Sage Group, Northern Engineering Industries, Cundall [6] and AMEC [7] all had offices at the Regent Centre. The Newcastle regional centre for the Open University was housed here, although it was relocated to Gateshead in 2009. [8]
There is also a hair salon/coffee shop as well as a gym and physiotherapy specialist. Previously there had been a branch of Barclays Bank located in the Regent Centre buildings.
Within walking distance of Regent Centre, there is Regent Centre Interchange, Gosforth Academy, Gosforth Library and Customer Service Centre, and the Gosforth Leisure Centre which comprises several amenities including swimming pools and gym. There is also an Asda superstore close by, which in mid 2007 had an extension built which houses a restaurant. Across from Asda there is a Marks & Spencer food store; that site used to house a furniture store, and had previously been a Jaguar Cars showroom. Gosforth High Street is also within a few minutes' walk. St Charles' Primary school is located on Regent Farm Road, across from the Virgin Money buildings, between Regent Centre and a housing estate, Regent Farm Estate.
Planning applications were granted to expand and modernise a large section of the Regent Centre site, which is adjacent to the Metro line. In April 2007, work began on this area of land which is also called Regent Point; [9] building work began in early 2008 on the 100,000 sq ft (9,300 m2) building. [10] It is a four-storey office building with a glazed corner tower and modelled to be similar to the existing Regent Centre buildings.
Clayton House, which occupied the Regent Point plot, was demolished in 1999 and so the plot was vacant for many years. [11] There have been many different accepted plans for this site, including plans for a 5-storey building in 1998. In 2004 there were plans for a 7-storey building with retail space on the ground floor, however, these plans were withdrawn in July 2005.
Developer Fordgate Group appointed Bowmer & Kirkland as the main contractor for Regent Point. The architects were Howarth Litchfield Partnership, the consulting engineers were Cundall, and Home Stretch Properties Ltd. were also involved in the project. Caunton Engineering Ltd supplied and erected over 600 tonnes of beam and column structural steelwork. [12] The building has a BREEAM rating of "Excellent". [13]
In November 2013, Regent Point was purchased by the Newcastle upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Trust, represented by GVA, for an undisclosed sum. [14]
The Virgin Money bank has its headquarters in Jubilee House which is adjacent to, although not part of, Regent Centre. The Red Box Design Group were involved with the development of all of the (currently standing) buildings for the bank.
The focal point of Regent Centre since 1965 [15] had been Northern Rock's old 7-storey building. In early 2006 this building was demolished [16] and its replacement, known as Partnership House, which is 10 storeys high and cost £35 million, was completed in November 2008. [17] Two of Northern Rock's other buildings on the site were completed in the 1990s; two further buildings were built in the early 2000s. The 1960s tower building also housed a branch of the Northern Rock bank.
Northern Rock had financial difficulties in 2007 due to the subprime mortgage crisis and was nationalised in 2008. This led to the company deciding to downsize, including job cuts and deciding to put this new tower building up for let or sale. [18] Newcastle City Council spent £22 million purchasing the building, and let it out to another firm, a company set up by the council with support services firm Carillion, on a 25-year lease. [19] [20] After Carillion's collapse in 2017, law firm Clifford Chance acquired the lease on Partnership House. [21]
In November 2011 Virgin Money agreed to purchase Northern Rock from the British Government. The deal was finalised on 1 January 2012. As of 12 October 2012 Northern Rock was rebranded to Virgin Money, and these buildings become Virgin Money's headquarters for their savings and mortgages business. Northern Rock House was renamed Jubilee House as part of the rebranding exercise.
With the new developments, as of March 2009, there is empty office space to let. [22] [23] There is space available in Regent Point, Horsley House North, Dobson House and Eldon House West. [24] The buildings are named after well known local industrialists and architects, such as John Dobson and Lord Eldon.
The Grainger Suite is located in Dobson House. North East accountancy firm MHA Tait Walker has offices in Bulman House.
In 2015 the owners of the north side of Regent Centre were exploring possibilities for the business park's future, including potentially turning the buildings into 400 residential dwellings, work that was under way in 2018. [25]
Northern Rock, formerly the Northern Rock Building Society, was a British bank. Based at Regent Centre in Newcastle upon Tyne, United Kingdom, Northern Rock was originally a building society. It demutualised and became Northern Rock bank in 1997, when it floated on the London Stock Exchange with the ticker symbol NRK.
John Dobson was a 19th-century English neoclassical architect. During his life, he was the most noted architect in Northern England. He designed more than 50 churches and 100 private houses, but he is best known for designing Newcastle railway station and his work with Richard Grainger developing the neoclassical centre of Newcastle. Other notable structures include Nunnykirk Hall, Meldon Park, Mitford Hall, Lilburn Tower, St John the Baptist Church in Otterburn, Northumberland, and Beaufront Castle.
Eldon Square is a shopping centre in Newcastle upon Tyne, England. It opened in 1976 and was built on the site of Old Eldon Square, a famous part of Georgian Newcastle designed by John Dobson in about 1824. This redevelopment, which left only the eastern terrace standing, has been criticised, with one writer calling it "the greatest single example of architectural vandalism in Britain since the war".
Gosforth is an affluent suburb of the city and metropolitan borough of Newcastle upon Tyne, in the county of Tyne and Wear, England. It constituted a separate urban district of Northumberland from 1895 until 1974 before officially merging with the city of Newcastle upon Tyne. In 2001, it had a population of 23,620.
Gosforth Academy is an English secondary school in Gosforth, Newcastle upon Tyne. As well as having a sixth form department it is a specialist Language College. Many of its mainstream students come from three large feeder middle schools: Gosforth Central Middle School, Gosforth East Middle School and Gosforth Junior High Academy.
Gosforth Park is a park north of Gosforth in the city of Newcastle upon Tyne, England. It houses Newcastle Racecourse, Virgin Money Unity Arena, a Britannia hotel, two golf courses, a garden centre and a football centre. It is also home to Gosforth Nature Reserve, a private SSSI managed by the Natural History Society of Northumbria, consisting of a lake and woodland.
Virgin Money is a banking and financial services brand operating in the United Kingdom.
Regent Centre is a Tyne and Wear Metro station in Zone B, serving the suburb of Gosforth, Newcastle upon Tyne. It joined the network on 10 May 1981, following the opening of the second phase of the network, between South Gosforth and Bank Foot.
Grainger Town is the historic commercial centre of Newcastle upon Tyne, England. It covers approximately 36 ha. Almost all of Grainger Town is in Newcastle's Central Conservation Area, one of the first designated in England. The area includes a mediaeval 13th-century Dominican priory, pieces of the historic Town Walls, and many fine Georgian and Victorian buildings.
Gosforth East Middle School is a middle school in Gosforth, Newcastle upon Tyne, England. Students usually transfer to Gosforth High School. The school is in the Parklands electoral ward.
Gosforth Junior High Academy, formerly known as Gosforth West Middle School is a middle school in Gosforth, Newcastle upon Tyne, England. It is the Junior School of Gosforth Academy.
West Gosforth was an electoral ward in the north of Newcastle upon Tyne, Tyne and Wear, England. It was created in 2004 and abolished in 2018. The population of the ward is 9,681, increasing to 9,991 at the 2011 Census, 3.7% of the total population of Newcastle upon Tyne. Car ownership in the area is 78.1%, higher than the city average of 54.7%.
Eaga plc was a British company supplying energy efficiency products. It was headquartered in Newcastle upon Tyne. In April 2011 it was acquired by Carillion.
Coxlodge is an area situated between Fawdon, Gosforth and Kenton in Newcastle upon Tyne, in the county of Tyne and Wear, England. Until 1974 it was in Northumberland.
St Nicholas Hospital is an NHS psychiatric hospital located in Gosforth, Newcastle upon Tyne, England, UK. The entrance is located on Jubilee Road. The buildings range from Victorian-era to modern facilities and occupy 12 hectares of land. The hospital is managed by Cumbria, Northumberland, Tyne and Wear NHS Foundation Trust.
Partnership House is a landmark tower office building in Gosforth, Newcastle upon Tyne, United Kingdom. It is located within the Regent Centre business park, and was originally built to act as the main entrance and landmark building within the headquarters complex of the Northern Rock bank, prior to its near-collapse and nationalisation. It lies in the West Gosforth council ward. The building is owned by the local council, Newcastle City Council, whereas the majority of the Regent Centre buildings are owned by Omnia.
Landmark Mortgages Limited, formerly Northern Rock plc and later NRAM plc, is a British asset holding and management company which was split away from the Northern Rock bank in 2010. It was publicly owned through the British Government's UK Asset Resolution following Northern Rock's nationalisation in 2008 until NRAM plc was sold to Cerberus Capital Management in 2016. The company is closed to new business.
Cundall is a multi-disciplinary engineering consultancy established in 1976 by Michael Burch, Rick Carr, Geoff Cundall, David Gandy, and Bernard Johnston. Founded in Newcastle and Edinburgh, Cundall now has United Kingdom offices in London, Newcastle, Edinburgh, Birmingham, Belfast, and Manchester, with Australian offices in Sydney, Perth, Melbourne, Brisbane, and Adelaide; Asian offices in Hong Kong, Shanghai, Manila, and Singapore; Middle East and North African (MENA) offices in Dubai, Doha, and Tripoli, and European offices in Dublin, Bucharest, Paphos, Madrid, and Wroclaw.
UK Asset Resolution (UKAR) is a British financial services holding company with headquarters in the West Yorkshire village of Crossflatts. It was established in October 2010 as a bad bank to hold the two run-off elements, Bradford & Bingley and NRAM plc, of the two nationalised banks in the wake of the financial crisis of 2007 and 2008.
Newcastle Great Park is a new suburb in the north of Newcastle upon Tyne, England. Much of Newcastle Great Park is still under development and is sandwiched in between older areas of Newcastle, namely Gosforth, Fawdon and Kingston Park to the south, and Hazlerigg to the north. Newcastle Great Park is the largest housing development in the North East of England.
