Riverside plots £17m Speke headquarters

The housing association is searching for a location to build a new head office in Speke, with a headquarters to be “designed from scratch” to accommodate more than 750 staff.

With an aim to have the building open by the end of 2021, Riverside is looking for a site within a mile of its existing office, which is at Estuary Commerce Park in Speke.

The housing association said its current premises was “too small with insufficient parking facilities” and was also “not designed to [our] current needs”.

Riverside is looking to work with a developer with land and capability to build a modern office, which will be three storeys tall, open plan, and uninterrupted by columns, according to the housing association’s brief.

Riverside said it wanted to be “fundamentally involved in the design of the new head office to avoid the issues we are currently facing within the existing building, therefore refurbishment of an existing building is not acceptable and will not be considered”.

The building will also need to include a data centre and will need to be available for final fit-out six months prior to occupation. The project’s estimated value is £17m.

Riverside currently operates across 160 local authorities and manages around 56,000 homes in England and Scotland. Projects the company currently has under way include a £20m renewal of the Palace Fields and Hallwood Park estates in Runcorn, where it is working with Optimised Environments, Avison Young, and Mott MacDonald.