Planning Permission granted for an office refurbishment in the heart of Chichester
James Wells Architects has recently achieved planning permission for a major office refurbishment to Sussex House in Crane Street, Chichester.
Sussex House is a three storey concrete framed building which was built in the 1960s. It is a mixed use commercial development providing retail and office accommodation in Chichester’s city centre. The retail use on the ground floor will remain as currently occupied. This scheme is to refurbish the two upper floors of office space and their associated common parts. The gross internal area of the upper floors is 6,610 square feet.
The concept created by the JWA team is to bring the first and second floors into line with contemporary office environment expectations for rental primarily focused on the private commercial market. The floors are to be divided into four self-contained suites complete with newly fitted ‘super loos’ to optimise flexible lettings for a range of potential tenants.
Externally Sussex Hou
se has suffered from little maintenance and upkeep to the elevations over several decades. Thus, as part of the overall refurbishment strategy the windows will be replaced on both upper floors. New painted W20 steel windows will be installed with horizontal centre casements hung on pivots. The proportion of the replacement windows has been carefully considered with pane sizes modelled on the pane sizes to the existing sash windows seen on neighbouring buildings, many of which are of the Georgian period.
This refurbishment gives the opportunity to remove the retro-fitted services routed up the exterior of the building and reroute new services internally. An accessible duct will be installed for further or additional communications services which may be required at a later date.
This refurbishment will bring the sadly neglected Sussex House back into use as an aspirational city centre business location, a much sought after commodity which will plug a gap in the commercial property landscape in Chichester.
Please get in touch using the form below if you have a project you need help with or take a look at our other work.
