Major Reading office development moves closer to reality
If ever a deal illustrated the importance of location, it must be Reading’s Station Hill.
Values plummeted after the ambitious £400m scheme was planned in 2005 and locals feared the proposed towers, piazzas, bowling alley, flats and hotel would remain on the drawing board. Worse still the vandalised 1960s buildings occupying the site today would remain.
But investment from Benson Elliot Capital Management and Stanhope makes it likely to go ahead, albeit in two to three years. In the words of Marc Mogull from Benson Elliot: “It will happen.”
But how did Sackville get investment for a town sporting plenty of decent vacant office space? Sackville director Jon Homan said its appeal is: “Absolutely its location.” Without this investment the gateway to Reading would remain a derelict bus station, an empty office building and a tower block whose best feature is how the graffiti artists managed to scrawl on the panels just above the 15th floor.
