66 Esplanade | St Helier | Jersey
CLIENT Dandara Jersey Ltd
LOCATION St Helier, Jersey
DURATION
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This was an opportunity for a 17,000m2 newly constructed landmark office building located on the Esplanade, with return frontages along both Patriotic Street and Kensington Place. The Esplanade is Jersey's prime office location and forms the focal point of St Helier's Central Business District and is the gateway to St Helier as a whole. The site occupies the most prominent position on the Esplanade, being the first headquarters building, as one approaches St Helier from the West. This location benefits from being within a short walk from St Helier’s town marinas, leisure and fitness complex, various bars/restaurants and the principal pedestrian retailing street of King Street. The development consists of a purpose built 6 storey office building, with an impressive communal main entrance foyer. From 1st to 5th floors, the building provides unrivalled open plan office accommodation, with excellent natural light provision.
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VZDV have a longstanding and successful relationship with Dandara, the Island’s largest commercial developer, and were approached by Dandara to assist in this development. Dandara employed VZDV from feasibility stage to review and to comment on the proposed architectural plans and pre-planning application to ensure that the building would meet the project objectives. VZDV's appointment included producing detailed tender and contract stage information for the MEP services and were retained for a monitoring role during construction.
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Dandara Jersey Ltd's objective was to create a landmark office building in this prominent location which could provide a headquarters building for an international blue-chip company. The building was to achieve high sustainability and energy credentials and provide flexibility to future-proof the building to meet a wide range of prospective tenant requirements.
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The Island poses unique challenges; some products or techniques available in the UK construction industry simply cannot be supported on the Island. VZDV’s experience in commercial developments in Jersey dating back to 2003 means we were best placed to deliver a building with unique and ambitious requirements, while respecting the constraints of the local market.
In proud collaboration with:
Dandara Jersey Ltd and Axis Mason Architects
BACKGROUND
VZDV have a longstanding and successful relationship with Dandara, Jersey Island’s largest commercial developer, and were approached by Dandara to assist in this development.
The project involved a 17,000m2 newly constructed landmark office building located on the Esplanade, Jersey’s prime office location and the focal point of St. Helier’s Central Business District.
The development consists of a purpose built 6 storey office building, with an impressive communal main entrance foyer. From 1st to 5th floors, the building provides unrivalled open plan office accommodation, with excellent natural light provision.
THE OBJECTIVE
Dandara Jersey Ltd objective was to create a landmark office building in this prominent location which could provide a headquarters building for an international blue-chip company. The building was to achieve high sustainability and energy credentials and provide flexibility to future proof the building to meet a wide range of prospective tenant requirements.
THE CHALLENGE
The building was required to retain the 14 Patriotic Street façade which was listed and overall have excellent sustainability and energy credentials, and at the same time meet the requirements for the British Council for Offices (BC0).
From an engineering point of the building, it had to accommodate an occupancy density well more than most commercial developments and resilience. The plant and riser space were designed to allow the building to have occupancy for a single large headquarter tenant and also the flexibility for a multi tenanted building. This required close coordination with the concept architect.
Boardroom
THE DEFINING MOMENT
VZDV undertook numerous iterations of reviewing and commenting on architect’s drawings to ensure adequate allocation and location of plant and riser space to ensure that the immediate building services requirements were met but also providing flexibility for different future tenant configurations.
This included extensive energy and daylight modelling during the concept design stages to optimise the building’s form and agree performance parameters for the glazing to find the optimum balance between useful light without creating excessive solar gain.
THE TRANSFORMATION
The building is heated and cooled via high efficiency air source heat pumps with the ability to recover energy. The Island imports the majority of its electricity from France and due to the high percentage of nuclear power generation the carbon intensity of the French grid is much lower than that of for example the UK.
The use of an electrified heat source means the building’s carbon footprint is minimised, with the ability to be zero carbon. The development includes an International BREEAM rating and was designed in accordance with BCO standards.
Ground floor and reception
RECOGNITION
The completed building currently hosts Royal Bank of Canada as the anchor tenant and is also occupied by prominent companies such as First Names Group, Collas Crill and Deloitte.
The completed building was purchased in what was described at the time as the largest single asset commercial office acquisition in the Channel Islands at the time.
The building is currently named Gaspe House which is a name which reflects its Canadian roots while recognising Jersey’s historic ties to the Gaspe Peninsula in Canada’s eastern Quebec region, through the early 19th century cod fishing trade.
Meeting Room with View
LEARNINGS
The Island poses unique challenges; some products or techniques available in the UK construction industry simply cannot be supported on the Island. VZDV’s experience in commercial developments in Jersey dating back to 2003 means VZDV are best placed to deliver a building with unique and ambitious requirements, while respecting the constraints of the local market.
NEXT STEPS
We are always keen to talk to responsible developers or tenants with unique requirements, including low carbon and energy aspirations.
Van Zyl & de Villiers (VZDV)
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