Aykley plans BTR for ex-AA office
Imad Ali’s Aykley Developments has unveiled proposals for a £50m build-to-rent development at Newcastle Business Park, hoping to create 151 homes in the former AA North East regional headquarters.
Designed by Newcastle architect FaulknerBrowns, with planning advice provided by DPP Planning, the development has been conceived around the principle of retaining and reusing as much of the existing building as possible while significantly improving its environmental performance.
Aykley secured a £2.25m bridging loan from SDKA to buy the building at the end of last year. Details of the development finance have not been revealed.
Rather than demolishing the former offices and rebuilding from the ground up, the existing structural frame will be retained, avoiding a significant source of embodied carbon and extending the useful life of the building.
Aykley’s development team of Terry Haley, Imad Ali and David Wilson outside Carr Ellison House. Credit: Aykley
Imad Ali, CEO of Aykley Developments, part of Aykley Group, said: “Newcastle needs new homes, but how and where we create them matters. This is an opportunity to regenerate an existing brownfield site and give a well-built but vacant office building decades more productive use rather than demolishing it and starting again.”
The design includes exhaust-air heat pumps, mechanical ventilation with heat recovery, air source heat pumps, and solar panels.
There will be a swimming pool, spa, gym and personal training facilities, residents’ lounge, co-working spaces, private dining rooms, meeting rooms and boardrooms, podcast and art studios, cinema room, golf simulator and padel courts.
Aykley Group’s portfolio includes residential developments at Pimlico Court in Durham and St James View in Newcastle. Subsidiary Pimlico Homes has recently acquired a 13-acre site in Northumberland for a premium barn conversion scheme. The Group is also active in the hospitality sector in Durham through The Court and luxury aparthotel The Sanctuary Knocker.
