The reimagined Gloucestershire business campus Grange Park has achieved its biggest letting deal yet, with insurance business Polo Works signing up for 14,000 square feet in the ‘people first’ office destination.
The ten year lease is a significant letting in the local market and if not the largest, certainly one of the largest since lockdown.
Polo Works is a well-established commercial insurance service provider and from early June will base 300 staff in re-imagined space on the first floor of Grange Park’s biggest building, The Grange.
Since Covid the company has operated flexible working and will have 158 desks at The Grange for its teams to use.
The Polo business was acquired by Marco Capital in May 2022 and its services include underwriting support, management accounting, claims management, compliance & regulatory and workflow management.
Chief executive officer Richard Lawson said’: “We are very pleased to be basing our staff at Grange Park. We like the ‘people first’ ethic of the campus, which mirrors how we feel about our colleagues, and the progressive vision of its redesign.
“Grange Park provides a modern working environment in a prestigious building in an excellent location and offers great value to us as a business.”
Grange Park, a green 14-acre mixed use campus on the A435 at Bishop’s Cleeve, is part way through a multi-million pound transformation focused initially on the interiors of The Grange, the former Zurich Insurance HQ building.
The 185,000 sq ft office building is getting a redesigned reception, common areas and glazed atrium above a green boulevard – ‘The Street’ – with island planters plus new lighting, flooring and toilets.
It was announced in January that some of the reimagined first floor space will be occupied by global testing, inspection and certification group Kiwa. Its team has moved into temporary offices on the ground floor and will relocate to a larger first floor suite in the summer.
Spring 4 represented Polo Works in negotiations with Grange Park’s joint lettings agents who are already looking ahead.
Richard Crabb, from THP, said: “Getting this deal away is really good news, it means we only have 25% of Phase 1 units remaining and we are turning our attention to Phase 2 which will deliver a further 30,000 sq ft.”
Ian Wills, from JLL, added: “On the back of this success we are in discussion with other potential occupiers, including those from the cyber sector.”
Grange Park is being reimagined as a ‘people first’ mixed use campus where staff and visitors can work, relax and exercise amid mature trees in 14 acres of parkland next to Grangefield, a further 11 acres of accessible wetland, wildflower meadow, orchard and ponds.
The Grange’s 60,000 sq ft floor plates are some of the largest in the South West which allows space to be designed to an occupier’s requirements without the restraints and compromises often encountered in smaller areas, as well as having scope for future expansion.
Rents at Grange Park are also very attractive at up to 50 per cent less than equivalent space in the town centre.
Grange Park is well connected by road to Cheltenham and the M5’s junction nine. It is just three miles from Cheltenham town centre and less than five from GCHQ. Bus services stop on the site and the county council has plans to extend safe cycling routes from Cheltenham to Bishop’s Cleeve as part of Gloucestershire’s new 26-mile ‘cycle spine’.
