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£330m Euro vision
 
The £330million Maxim office park development, with the M8 in the foreground, will be ready for occupation by spring 2010
The £330million Maxim office park development, with the M8 in the foreground, will be ready for occupation by spring 2010
 
Attractive landscaping will fringe the site
Attractive landscaping will fringe the site
 
Karen Campbell is enthusiastic about business park
Karen Campbell is enthusiastic about business park
 

by Ross McKinnon

AN ARTIST'S aerial view shows for the first time the huge scale of a £330million office development on the outskirts of Glasgow.

A total of 10 buildings with car parks and landscaped gardens will be spread over 756,000sq ft the equivalent of 27 football pitches.

The business park, named Maxim, at Eurocentral near Bellshill in Lanarkshire, will attract up to 7000 jobs and should be finished by March 2010.

Construction work is already under way on the site of the former Chunghwa plant, where tubes for computer monitors and TV screens were made.

The tubes plant - dubbed a white elephant as it failed to deliver a promised 3000 jobs after a £15m injection of public money - was demolished only last year after lying empty since 2002.

In the new overhead image, the Dakota Hotel near the M8 is pictured at the bottom left-hand corner, with the 10 office buildings sited above and to the right.

Karen Campbell, chief executive of the business park, said: "Maxim will set new standards in terms of working environments and will be set apart from every other UK business park by its sheer scale, high-quality design, buildings and on-site facilities."

As well as 10 office buildings, ranging from 58,600sq ft to 186,500sq ft, there will be on-site entertainment and leisure facilities, including 20,000sq ft of space for shops. The first office building is expected to be finished by this December.

The latest image of the business park was launched at MIPIM, the annual property conference in Cannes, France.

No businesses have yet been earmarked for the development but the commercial property agents responsible for attracting firms to the offices say the site will be one of the best of its kind in the UK.

Philip Reid, of property managers CBRE, said: "The intention is to create a best in class' modern working environment where occupiers enjoy all of the benefits of an out-of-town location but are also part of a vibrant commercial community.

"The development will suit large and small organisations and they will also benefit from extremely attractive commercial leasing packages."

Maxim is being funded by property firm Tritax Assets, with financial backing from the Bank of Scotland.

Tritax director Ian Ross said: "We have already had significant interest in the development and have been listening to the views of prospective occupiers."

Publication date 13/03/08

Posted by: jim, Glasgow on 11:11am Thu 13 Mar 08
Great news for That area .Hope the jobs are perminant.
Posted by: swiss scottish, Argyll on 12:51pm Thu 13 Mar 08
Another bland office development. European thoughts are now turning to keeping our commercial businesses in the cities along with residential. We need this to help to fill all the empty young professional flats blighting Glasgow and every other British town at the moment.
Posted by: swiss scottish, Argyll on 12:52pm Thu 13 Mar 08
Another bland office development. European thoughts are now turning to keeping our commercial businesses in the cities along with residential. We need this to help to fill all the empty young professional flats blighting Glasgow and every other British town at the moment.
Posted by: The Missing City, Glasgow on 1:35pm Thu 13 Mar 08
swiss scottish wrote:
Another bland office development. European thoughts are now turning to keeping our commercial businesses in the cities along with residential. We need this to help to fill all the empty young professional flats blighting Glasgow and every other British town at the moment.
Who cares what they do in England, they've never exactly gave a stuff for us Scots!

Still, it was a British government that ploughed all sorts of public dough into the Chungwa tellies site, only for them to leg it!

Smart move eh!
Posted by: Steven Glaswegian, Edinburgh (Unfortunatley!) on 2:54pm Thu 13 Mar 08
Brilliant! More jobs sucked out of the cities, more congestion on the roads as no doubt most of the employees will have to travel from the cities to their work!
Posted by: Pete, Glasgow on 4:37pm Thu 13 Mar 08
700 new jobs: excellent. 7000 jobs just being relocated: not so good. 7000 people working where they are able to use sustainable public transport to get to work: good. 7000 more cars on the M8: downright bad.
Posted by: Andrew Stephen on 6:19pm Thu 13 Mar 08
Pete wrote:
700 new jobs: excellent. 7000 jobs just being relocated: not so good. 7000 people working where they are able to use sustainable public transport to get to work: good. 7000 more cars on the M8: downright bad.
Agreed! Eurocentral is next to the ELECTRIFIED section of the Motherwell-Whifflet-
Coatbridge rail line to Cumbernauld & Falkirk/Stirling. No mention of the OBVIOUS possibility, indeed necessity of a station on this route to serve "EUROCENTRAL" (although such a name might be a bit confusing).
Posted by: Eh?, Glasgow on 6:24pm Thu 13 Mar 08
All teh benefits of out of town business parks???
And these are?
The M8 is already heavily conjested around this area as are the surrounding A roads. Public transport (should the environment be considered?) is clearly not going to be given a high priority for this development thus forcing more people to drive to work as these jobs will not be new. they will be relocated to there from other areas which may have better more direct public transport.

Should we not be encouraging business parks or simply offices to be located close to or in towns and cities which are natural transport hubs which would tehn allow people to choose public transport
Posted by: George Brown, glasgow on 8:56pm Thu 13 Mar 08
Who is the brainless wonder behind this one?
In the perfect world the M8 would probably have eight lanes and never ever have road works or delays of any sort, employees would never be late for the office and the low cost of petrol would attract people from as far away as Glasgow thats' if they could get out of the city via Plantation, Kingston bridge, Charing Cross and the junction for the M80 come to think on it the M8 has eight lanes
Posted by: swiss scottish, Argyll on 9:21am Fri 14 Mar 08
The Missing City wrote:
swiss scottish wrote: Another bland office development. European thoughts are now turning to keeping our commercial businesses in the cities along with residential. We need this to help to fill all the empty young professional flats blighting Glasgow and every other British town at the moment.
Who cares what they do in England, they've never exactly gave a stuff for us Scots! Still, it was a British government that ploughed all sorts of public dough into the Chungwa tellies site, only for them to leg it! Smart move eh!
sorry missing city - england? i made reference to Europe.

Out of town shopping malls, out of town offices, out of town housing new towns........aka american state? Plenty of good office space in city, needs lower rates though.
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