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The Tower (Gosforth)
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The Tower is a landmark office building in Gosforth, Newcastle upon Tyne, United Kingdom. It is located at the Regent Centre business park, and was originally built to act as the headquarters of the nationalised British bank Northern Rock. The building is owned by Northern Rock, whereas the majority of the Regent Centre buildings are owned by the Fordgate Group.
he 1960s, a 7 storey tower building was constructed for the newly formed Northern Rock Building Society in Gosforth.
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The Tower is a landmark office building in Gosforth, Newcastle upon Tyne, United Kingdom. It is located at the Regent Centre business park, and was originally built to act as the headquarters of the nationalised British bank Northern Rock. The building is owned by Northern Rock, whereas the majority of the Regent Centre buildings are owned by the Fordgate Group.
History
The 1960s tower
In the 1960s, a 7 storey tower building was constructed for the newly formed Northern Rock Building Society in Gosforth. This became the focal point of the Fordgate Group's Regent Centre complex in Newcastle upon Tyne. The Northern Rock Building Society was formed in 1965 as a result of the merger of Northern Counties Permanent Building Society (established in 1850) and Rock Building Society (established in 1865). Although not technically a part of Regent Centre, the Northern Rock buildings are adjacent to the complex.
During the 1990s, the expanding building society built two new buildings at its Northern Rock House site in Gosforth; the Kielder and Prudhoe buildings. By the late 1990s, along with many other building societies, the Northern Rock Building Society decided to demutualise, and become a bank. After becoming a bank Northern Rock began to grow quickly. This growth in business created the need for more buildings at their headquarters in Gosforth, and thus two sandstone and glass buildings were erected in the early 2000s.
Northern Rock also has customer contact centre operations at both Doxford International Business Park in Sunderland and at its head office. The bank was also developing a site at Rainton Bridge.
The 2000s tower
In 2004 the bank unveiled their plans for a new tower building to replace the ageing 1960s tower. In early 2006 the 1960s tower building was demolished by Thompsons of Prudhoe, and building work began on its replacement building in June 2006. Building the new tower was the final phase of the redevelopment of the Gosforth site. The design for this new tower was similar to the sandstone and glass buildings built in the early 2000s. The Red Box Design Group has been involved with the development of all of the currently standing buildings for the bank.
The new building that is 10 storeys high cost £35 million. Taylor Woodrow was the main contractor, and companies such as Desco and Red Box Architecture were involved with the design and construction. The building has been designed to achieve an "Excellent" BREEAM rating. The tower has a semi circular floor plate containing flexible open plan space and external roof top hospitality facilities.
After the bank's nationalisation
In September 2007 Northern received emergency liquidity support from the Bank of England, due to problems after the subprime mortgage crisis. After the press reported the news, a bank run commenced, where scared customers began to pull their money out of the bank. Private bids for the bank failed, and eventually in February 2008, the bank was nationalised. At the time of its nationalisation, the bank was mid-way through construction of the 10-storey tower that would provide a focus for the whole site.
The new tower block, simply known as The Tower, was completed in November 2008, originally intended to create 1500 jobs, and act as the main entrance and focal point of the company headquarters.
This led to the company deciding to downsize, including job cubs and deciding to put this new tower building up for let or sale, as the additional space has become surplus to requirements. The site at Rainton Bridge is now also to be sold or let to a third party.
Lease or sale
The Tower which has a Restaurant area on the ground floor and coffee shop facilities on first floor, has a total lettable area of 120,023sq ft. Gavin Black & Partners and GVA Lamb & Edge were appointed as the joint sole agents for the property.
The building has the following approximate net lettable floor areas:
| Level | M2 |
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| 9 | 598 | | 8 | 0 | | 7 | 1,380 | | 6 | 1,380 | | 5 | 1,380 | | 4 | 1,380 | | 3 | 1,380 | | 2 | 1,356 | | 1 | 1,150 | | 0 | 1,146 | | Total | 11,150 |
Image gallery
External links
Historic photographs
- at Newcastle libraries service
- , , at Newscast
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