Scheme to support city’s life sciences supply chain
Plans for an Allies & Morrison-designed manufacturing complex in Cambridge have been approved by the local council.
The 2.5ha Mercers Row scheme will consist of a cluster of ‘mid-tech’ buildings supporting the supply chain of the city’s growing life sciences industry.
The hybrid application, designed for Cambridge city council and property developer Wrenbridge, envisages two main manufacturing buildings with sawtooth roofs and a pocket park in its detailed element.
An outline element of the application would add a further 5,700sq m of commercial floorspace within a range of buildings as part of a second phase of construction.
Councillors voted seven in favour for the application and none against, with one abstention, at a planning committee meeting last week.
Planning officers had recommended the scheme for approval ahead of the meeting, arguing it would have “a positive visual impact and would result in high-quality, well-designed buildings and landscaping to replace an existing run-down area”.
Officers said the scheme would support growing demand for mid-tech floorspace in the city, which has seen a string of large life science apporvals in recent years including Allies & Morrison’s 11,000sq m workspace at Cambridge Science Park.
> Also read: Ministers pledge to double the size of the Oxford-Cambridge economy in boost for life sciences sector
Other major life sciences schemes in the city include Hawkins Brown’s £100m Coldhams Lane masterplan and a 139,000sq ft builidng at Merlin Place by HOK.
The project team for Mercers Row includes Stantec on planning, heritage and landscape architecture, Sweco as acoustics consultant, KAM as cost consultant and Burrows Graham as structural and civil engineer. CMP Architects is executive architect.
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