The finishing touches are being made at a new warehouse that has replaced the old Autrotrader offices in Reading.
The large three-storey logistics warehouse has been built after planning approval was granted for it to replace the old Autotrader and the Hartman House office building in Danehill, Lower Earley in March last year.
Danehill is the street name of the Cutbush Park Industrial Estate, which is home to a number of businesses located just off Cutbush Lane.
Both the Autotrader and Hartman House had been vacant since 2015.
The new logistics hub is being marketed for rent by TL Real Estate, with rent being determined on application. An advert states that the hub, which has been named ‘Gem Reading’ offers ‘much needed high quality warehouse and logistics accommodation’ in the affluent M4 high tech corridor’.
It comes with 48 car parking spaces and eight electric vehicle charging points, with lorry and van parking facilities to serve whichever company occupies the hub.
According to the advert, the unit should be ready for occupation, as the scheduled finished date was reached in July.
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The site was previously subject to a plan to replace the Autotrader and Hartman House buildings with three apartment blocks containing a total of 76 flats.
That plan was approved on appeal to the planning inspectorate in June 2019, with inspector S J Papworth judging that residential use of the site was acceptable and the proposed housing mix of 70 per cent of that flats being one beds also being ruled acceptable.
However, the site’s previous owners eventually submitted a fresh plan for the logistics hub which was approved by Wokingham Borough Council’s planning committee last March.
At the meeting when the project was approved, a planning agent for the previous owners Nodia Properties RR & Aydevan Developers said that having flats on the site “would not be viable.”
The logistics hub was acquired by real estate management company Vengrove in May 2022, which valued it at £16.5 million.
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The company will retain ownership of the logistics hub while it is let out to a tenant.
Vengrove is now making the finishing touches to the site, which involved submitting details of external lighting, the energy efficiency of the new building and details of hard and soft landscaping at the site.
All of these details have been submitted and approved by Wokingham Borough Council.
You can view these details by typing reference 231193 into the council’s planning portal.
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