We welcomed an enthusiastic crowd of over 70 people to our event with Constructing Excellence – Yorkshire and the Humber to Kirkstall Forge.

Led by CEG’s investment manager Paul Richardson and project manager from Pierre Angulaire – Gareth Chambers, they covered the development in its more recent history starting with Gareth’s first visit to Kirkstall Forge when CEG acquired the site and the former Forge warehouses were visible still in the aerial photograph he shared.

Gareth talked about the challenges of taking on the site, the considerable amount of work into things such as re-connecting services and building infrastructure to enable the train station and first office building to come forward. Paul then spoke about the commercial challenges of securing a pre-let for the office building, the brave approach to creating a high quality office building outside of the city centre which has been rewarded with over 10 awards from design to wellbeing consideration as well as comms resilience as well as reaching 97% let within 2 years of opening.

He noted how much the team had enjoyed working alongside Zenith to design a building that worked for them as well and that the same design team have been working on the next office building, 2 Kirkstall Forge. Gareth then provided an update on the residential side of the development and in detail about the prototype houses that are almost complete. The audience also enjoyed a tour of the Forge Studios and took part in some engaging Q&As!

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