IDEAS to create new offices on the ex-BTR site in Dunstable are taking a major step forward.
A £6.5 million Holiday Inn Express, with 120 bedrooms, is already being built on one part of the former rubber factory site.
The Julian Hodge Bank team is providing funding for the four-storey hotel, which should be completed in the summer, bringing 50 new jobs to the town.
And the team is now pressing ahead with marketing other development plans for the site.
The A5 site, renamed Gateway Dunstable, sits on the southern outskirts of the town, opposite Beech Road.
Detailed planning permission is already in place for high-specification two-storey and three-storey offices.
Now the bank is giving the project a boost by providing “competitive funding options” and a design team geared up to interpret and meet the needs of clients interested in the scheme.
Offices up to 40,000 sq ft will be offered on a freehold or leasehold basis.
Planning consent has also been gained for a 70-bed specialised care home and 64 houses on the site.
Paul Budd, the bank’s commercial lending director, feels the site is a “strategic and viable” location, based just minutes from the M1 and from the town centre.
He said: “With the hotel opening this summer, we are envisaging a great deal of interest in Gateway Dunstable, which also has potential for several types of businesses wishing to invest in the town.”
> For more information about the development, contact Lloyd Spencer or Paul Jessop at Lambert Smith Hampton, on 01582 450444.