Maidenhead: £50m revamp planned for Foundation Park

Ambitious proposals to complete the high-quality transformation of a Thames Valley business park have been approved.

National planning and development consultants Lichfields secured permission on behalf of FPM Investments Sarl (managed by JP Morgan) for the development of three replacement office buildings at Foundation Park in Maidenhead.

The £50 million plan, which also include a new central hub building, pedestrianised zones, a new car park and landscaping, was approved unanimously by Royal Borough of Windsor & Maidenhead Council members.

The existing three office buildings will be demolished to be replaced by three new high quality three-storey office buildings with a floorspace of 5,659 sq ms, and the new four-storey central hub will have a floorspace of 2,401 sq ms. This represents an uplift of 28% on the existing floorspace.

Sarah Moorhouse, associate director for Lichfields in the Thames Valley, said: “We are pleased to see the Council embrace this exciting development which will help complete the transformation of Foundation Park.

“The development will lead to the creation of a campus environment, with an emphasis on creating a high-quality public realm to replace the existing fragmented layout, dominated by cars and roads.”

Lichfields says the £50m development will deliver 185 jobs during the construction phase, and 215 supply chain jobs during construction.

The new office buildings have the potential to deliver hundreds of additional jobs, and, once operational, will result in £46.7 million additional GVA per annum and £750,000 in business rate revenues per annum.

In recent years, Foundation Park has been the subject of considerable investment with a combination of new builds and refurbishments attracting a number of new tenants to the Park.

The new decked car park will provide 456 car parking spaces and following the reconfiguration this will increase total car parking spaces at the park by 271.

The number of accessible spaces will rise from 25 to 61, cycling bays will more than double to 250 and provision will be made for 61 motorbikes.

Roof terraces are proposed on all four new buildings to provide additional social space for tenants.