ISG Secures Refurbishment Contract For SWIP Property İn Reading

Scottish Widows Investment Partnership (SWIP) is one of the largest asset management companies in Europe. ISG has won a £12 million contract to carry out a phased refurbishment programme for SWIP at one of the company’s investment properties in Reading.

The 12 month programme will see ISG enhance the asset potential of Abbots House, increasing the useable floor space of the 100,000ft2 building in an ambitious scheme involving the construction of two new staircases to the central atrium. The four-sided atrium will be stripped back to shell and core and a new staircase added to provide central access from the ground to level four and a second staircase installed to provide ground to level two access. The works to the atrium will also involve the extension of a number of existing slabs to create a larger office floorplate to all levels.

The project also involves the fit out of levels three and four to Cat A standard, while an incumbent tenant remains in occupation across the first floor and the building’s main entrance and maintain a temporary operational reception area. This element of the programme includes stripping out a 5,000 ft2 plant room on level four and converting it into office space, while replacing the building’s generator, water tank, boilers, uninterrupted power supply and air handling unit systems as part of the programme.

Levels three and four are scheduled for completion before the end of 2011 and the incumbent tenant will then move into this space, leaving ISG to carry out the strip out and Cat B refurbishment of the remaining 70,000 ft2 on ground the floor and levels one and two in preparation for a new, high profile professional services tenant. This tranche of the refurbishment programme has been designed to meet the corporate style of the tenant and involves a new reception area, high specification meeting rooms and open plan office space, with phased delivery of this accommodation to enable the tenant to occupy the building in summer 2012.

Paul Cossell, managing director of ISG Fit Out, commented: “This represents the latest project secured by ISG in a burgeoning relationship with the business. This scheme demonstrates how an existing building can be significantly enhanced to make it more commercially viable for the owner and more attractive to tenants. ISG has the required experience of completing complex schemes under business-as-usual conditions to help the client realise its ambitions at this site.”