Chatham Place, Reading, Berkshire - Phase One

Project Summary

Faithful+Gould have provided cost consultancy services for Muse Development's Chatham Place mixed use scheme in Reading through out the development cycle.

Phase One comprised of the demolition and site clearance of the existing buildings and the construction of a 650 space Multi Storey Car Park, 98 Unit Affordable Residential block, 211 Market Sales Residential block, 20,000sqft of retail, basement and undercroft car parking and associated public realm. The on-site construction programme for Phase One was delivered over a 4 year period and the combined construction cost was c.£45m.

The approach

Faithful+Gould worked closely with the design team members to ensure that a commercially viable detailed planning application was obtained that met the client's brief and architectural aspirations for the development.

Post planning Faithful+Gould developed a procurement strategy in conjunction with the client to the make the site as attractive as possible to the market by de-risking the works and packaging the different building types for procurement.

The challenge

The key challenge for the project was to achieve the contemporary architectural design aspirations for the scheme while ensuring maximum financial return through best value design and procurement strategy.

Faithful+Gould were able to draw upon their expertise in mixed use schemes to ensure the efficiencies of the buildings were at their optimum by undertaking cost studies on core sizes, corridor lengths and net apartment sizes to provide the best value for the scheme.

Outcome

Due to the procurement strategy proposed by Faithful+Gould we were able to obtain high quality and best value returns from the market which ensured that all packages were returned under budget. Through clear and robust contract documentation and post contract management all packages were completed under budget.

Read about Chatham Place - Phase 2.