Contents

City Place Gatwick

City Place Gatwick is an office complex located on the property of London Gatwick AirportinCrawley, West Sussex, England.^[1] The complex includes four buildings: The Beehive, an approximately 20,000-square-foot (1,900 m²) former terminal building at Gatwick Airport located on a 2.0-acre (0.81 ha) site; 1 City Place a 131,500-square-foot (12,220 m²) facility on a 4.2-acre (1.7 ha) site, 2 City Place, a 85,000-square-foot (7,900 m²) building on a 1.9 acres (0.77 ha) plot, and 3 City Place, a 65,000-square-foot (6,000 m²) building on a 1.06-acre (0.43 ha) plot.^[2] Hamiltons Architects designed the L-shaped 3 City Place.^[3]

BT Wholesale formerly had an office at 1 City Place.^[4] BDO International has an office at 2 City Place.^[5] Beehive City Place previously housed the head offices of GB Airways, which had its head office in the Beehive,^[6] and CP Ships, which had its head office in 2 City Place.^[7]

In 2012, Nestlé UK announced they would be moving their head office from St George's House Croydon to the former BT building at 1 City Place.^[8]

History[edit]

City Place was developed by BAA Lynton.^[9] In March 2000,^[10] BT Group pre-let 14,000 square metres (150,000 sq ft) of space at City Place, which at the time had 46,500 square metres (501,000 sq ft) of available space; it was a part of an effort by BT to move employees from Central London to locations along the M25 motorway.^[9] The BT 15-year lease had an initial rent of £242 per square metre. BT had an option to use an additional 10,200 square metres (110,000 sq ft) once the space became available. Construction at 1 City Place was completed in May 2002, and BT planned to occupy the building at the end of 2002.^[10] In October 2002 BAA Lynton announced that it was selling 1 City Place, which was valued at £41.7 million. The real estate arm of Gulf Atlantic bought 1 City Place.^[10] BAA received 14 million pounds from the sale of 1 City Place Gatwick and Heathrow South Cargo Centre 1.^[11]

2 City Place was forward funded by the Co-operative Insurance Society.^[10] BAA Lynton was building phase two of 2 City Place as of November 2001.^[12]

The owners of the Beehive leased the building to GB Airways, and later sold it to the airline.^[10] When EasyJet announced its purchase of most of GB Airways's assets in 2007, The Beehive was not included. The employment base at The Beehive closed, with 284 job losses.^[13]

In 2003 CP Ships moved its European HQ in to 2 City Place.^{[citation needed]} In 2004 it announced that it would move its head office from Trafalgar Square, City of Westminster to Gatwick.^[14] After Hapag-Lloyd acquired CP Ships, in 2006 Hapag-Lloyd announced it would cut 500 positions at Gatwick.^[15] In 2007 BDO International announced that it was moving an office to Gatwick from Bromley, London Borough of Bromley. BDO leased the entire 21,000-square-foot (2,000 m²) second floor of its new building.^[16] After the purchase by easyJet occurred in January 2008, the building was retained by GB's former parent company, Bland Group.^[17]

Construction on a £10.2 million, four-storey office building at CityPlace was completed in September 2008.^[18]

Former tenants[edit]

A number of airlines have had offices at the Beehive, including BEA/British Airways Helicopters,^[19][20] Jersey Airlines, Caledonian Airways, Virgin Atlantic and GB Airways.^{[21][22][23][24]} Other airlines which had headquarters on airport property (including office buildings on the site of, or adjacent to, the original 1930s airport) include British Caledonian,^[25][26] British United Airways,^[27] CityFlyer Express,^[28] Laker Airways^[29] and Tradewinds Airways.^[30][31]

References[edit]

External links[edit]

• City Place Gatwick
• "BT City Place, Gatwick." Capita Symonds. ()
• "South East Office & Business Park Management." (Archive) Knight Frank.

51°08′42″N 0°09′47″W / 51.145°N 0.163°W / 51.145; -0.163