A 1,200m² Cat-B office fit-out across two floors of a BREEAM Excellent host building at Wellington Place, Leeds — regional HQ for a growing professional-services firm scaling from 95 to a planned 150 staff. Open-plan working for 120 hybrid desks, six glazed meeting pods, dedicated client suite with reception, breakout café with espresso bar, biophilic touches throughout, and a feature open-tread oak staircase running between the two floors as the project's design centrepiece. Ten weeks fixed price, occupancy on the contracted day.
A growing professional-services firm with around 95 staff scaling toward 150 over the next eighteen months, taking 1,200m² across two floors of a BREEAM Excellent host building at Wellington Place — Leeds' premier modern business quarter, north of the railway station and walking distance from the city core. The firm had outgrown a single-floor office in another part of central Leeds and wanted the new HQ to make a clear statement about who they were as an employer: open-plan working culture, hybrid as the default rather than the exception, and a working environment good enough that staff wanted to come in three days a week without being asked.
Wellington Place itself is the right address for that brief. Modern host buildings, BREEAM Excellent host shell, raised access flooring delivered to Cat-A standard with perimeter trunking and base building M&E in place at landlord handover. We had ten weeks to take the keys and turn it into a working office configured for a hybrid 1:0.8 desk-to-staff ratio (120 desks supporting 95 staff today, 150 forecast), with a client-facing suite that worked for visiting partners, a breakout café that worked as both lunch space and casual meeting space, and a feature staircase that connected the two floors visually rather than just functionally.
We were one of three contractors invited to tender. We came in second on price by approximately £19,000. We won the work because the firm's Operations Director read all three methodology documents and said ours was the only one to (a) treat the feature staircase as a design centrepiece with its own lead time and finishing programme rather than as a generic stair install, (b) cost the breakout café espresso bar and full plumbing-and-electrics infrastructure into the fixed price rather than flagging it as a "specialist contractor item TBC", and (c) include the biophilic planting integration (living wall to the breakout café, integrated planters at the staircase landing) within the contract sum. Ten weeks on site. Day-one occupancy on the Monday of week eleven.
The brief came from the firm's Operations Director and Head of People jointly, with input from the firm's Managing Partner on client-suite presentation. Priorities, in their stated order:
A 10-week Cat-B at 1,200m² across two floors with a feature staircase, espresso bar build, biophilic integration and a client suite is achievable but unforgiving. Six interrelated constraints had to be locked down before site start.
The staircase is the most photographed object in a modern HQ and the design move that telegraphs everything about the firm's culture in one view. We treated it as its own workstream: bespoke fabrication with a specialist staircase contractor, eight-week lead time placed in week 1, oak treads, powder-coated steel stringers in the firm's brand teal, continuous toughened glass balustrade, integrated planter zone at the half-landing. Delivered to site week 8, installed Tuesday-Thursday after the structural opening was certified by Building Control on the Monday.
A working espresso bar is significantly more than a counter and a machine: dedicated 32A circuit, hot and cold supplies with isolation valves, dishwasher waste connection, vented refrigeration condensate drain, 16A circuit for the under-counter dishwasher, water filter loop pre-machine. We costed the full M&E infrastructure into the fixed price at quote stage rather than treating it as a specialist contractor item. First fix in week 3, commissioning by espresso machine vendor in week 9, four staff trained on the machine before handover.
The biophilic touches are easy to specify and surprisingly hard to maintain over time. We integrated drip-irrigation feeds at each of the six planter locations (living wall, staircase half-landing, four ceramic planter walls), routed off the breakout café cold supply with isolation valves and timed watering, sized to handle the actual plant species selected by the firm's interior consultant. Plants delivered on the Monday of week ten and integrated into the irrigation system before Friday handover. Six-month warranty on the irrigation install.
Client suites need to feel separate from the staff floor in ambience without being separated by a physical wall — ceiling height variation, floor finish change, lighting tone difference, acoustic privacy without total enclosure. We designed the upper-floor reception with a 200mm raised step-on detail, suspended timber slat ceiling element above the welcome lobby zone, warm 2700K lighting in the suite versus 4000K on the open-plan side, and a soft acoustic perimeter using thick-pile rug and acoustic wall panels behind the reception desk to mark the threshold without using a doorway.
Hybrid working makes wireless coverage critical in a way that a fixed-desk environment doesn't — staff move between zones during the day, take calls in pods, work from the breakout café. We commissioned a wireless site survey at first fix specifying density rather than just coverage: eight wireless APs per floor, specified for 50+ concurrent connections each, validated by post-install heat map showing >-65dBm signal across 100% of the usable floor plate including the breakout café and the staircase landing.
Day-one occupancy was non-negotiable: the firm's lease commencement on the new floors and the break clause on their previous office both pivoted on the Monday of week eleven. We worked back from that date for every milestone — staircase install at week 8, plant integration at week 10, snag rounds Tuesday and Wednesday of week 10, IT migration weekend Saturday-Sunday of week 10, occupancy at 8am Monday of week 11. Liquidated damages clause in the contract above the contracted handover date.
Brand-led HQ fit-outs succeed or fail on three things: treating the design centrepieces as named workstreams rather than generic items, costing the long-tail finishing trades (espresso bar, biophilic, client suite identity) into the fixed price at quote stage, and dovetailing IT migration so the firm walks in on Monday morning to a working office. Our approach was structured around four disciplines.
Feature elements as named workstreams from quote stage. The two competing tenders treated the feature staircase, espresso bar build and biophilic planting as line items to be agreed during the build. We treated them as named workstreams with their own foremen, their own programmes and their own commissioning sign-offs. Eight-week staircase lead time was placed in week 1; espresso bar M&E infrastructure was costed in full at quote stage; biophilic irrigation was specified before site start. Three "as required" lines on the competing quotes turned into three signed-off deliverables on ours.
Single acoustic target, six pods, independent test. The brief asked for a single Rw 38dB target across all six glazed meeting pods. We specified one partition build for all six (92mm metal stud, double 12.5mm acoustic plasterboard, 100mm Rockwool RW3 core), 12.7mm laminated glazing on a single aluminium frame system, identical door spec with bottom seals across all six. Independent acoustic test on a three-pod sample at week 8 measured 39-41dB across the sample — every pod above target, no pod marginal.
Brand expression woven through finishes, not bolted on. The firm's brand teal isn't applied as accent paint on a feature wall. It runs through the staircase stringer powder coat, the breakout café backsplash tiling, the meeting room acoustic-panel fabric, the signage walls at reception and the perimeter trim of the upper-floor client suite ceiling element. Each touch agreed with the firm's interior consultant at design stage and ordered with the lead times committed. The brand reads consistently across both floors without anyone needing to stand next to a Pantone chart.
IT migration weekend dovetailed with day-one occupancy. Structured cabling, fibre uplinks and wireless commissioning ran as a parallel workstream. By week 9 every cable was certified and patched. The firm's IT team migrated their server estate, file shares and telephony over the Saturday-Sunday of week 10 with us on continuous attendance. 8am Monday of week 11: every desk live, every meeting room AV operational, the espresso bar serving its first coffee at 8.15am.
Fifty working days from key handover to occupancy. Two parallel-floor programmes sequenced against a Friday-of-week-10 handover and an 8am Monday-of-week-11 day-one occupancy.
Detailed Cat-A survey of both floors: floor box positions, ceiling void depth, fire alarm grid coverage, sprinkler grid coverage, structural penetrations available for the feature staircase. Partition layout marked out on raised access flooring on both floors. Long-lead orders placed: feature oak staircase (8 weeks), client suite suspended timber slat ceiling element (6 weeks), bespoke espresso bar joinery (5 weeks), brand-coloured acoustic-panel fabric to meeting pods (4 weeks). Wireless site survey commissioned for week 7 validation.
Metal stud framing on both floors for all 6 meeting pods, the 2 client rooms, the team room and the upper-floor client suite. 92mm stud, 100mm Rockwool RW3, double 12.5mm acoustic plasterboard each side. Cable tray containment installed in ceiling void on both floors. Higher-spec partition to the Managing Partner's office for additional acoustic privacy.
Parallel first-fix workstreams on both floors. Electrical: small power, lighting circuits, dedicated 32A espresso bar circuit, 16A under-counter dishwasher circuit, dual brand-teal feature lighting at the staircase position. Hot and cold supplies to the espresso bar with isolation valves. Dishwasher waste connection. Refrigeration condensate drain. Cat-6 runs to all 120 workstations from each floor's IDF. Biophilic irrigation cold supply roughed in to the six planter positions.
Plasterboard taped, jointed, sanded and prepared for paint on both floors. Aluminium glazed pod frames erected for all 6 meeting pods plus the 2 client rooms and team room. Doors hung. Acoustic ceiling rafts (Ecophon Solo Square at three height levels) suspended in open-plan areas of both floors. First-fix acoustic wall panels behind workstation bank positions.
12.7mm laminated glass installed to all 6 meeting pods, both client rooms and the team room. Acoustic seals fitted to door head, jambs and bottom on each room. Second-fix electrical: switchplates, sockets, light fittings (3000K to client suite, 4000K to open-plan, dimmable across both). Two coats of paint to all walls and exposed ceiling areas across both floors. Brand-teal feature accents at signage walls applied.
Comms cabinets built on both floors, switches and patch panels installed, fibre terminated. 10Gb fibre uplink between IDFs energised and tested. Independent third-party Cat-6 channel certification: 132 channels tested across both floors, 132 passed at first measurement. Carpet tiles laid across open-plan working zones, LVT to breakout café and reception areas. Brand-teal entrance mat fitted at the upper-floor reception.
Bespoke timber slat ceiling element installed above the upper-floor reception welcome zone, lighting integrated. Wireless site survey post-install validation: 8 access points per floor, all positions confirmed delivering >-65dBm signal across 100% of usable floor plate, validated heat map produced. AV pre-install across the four AV-rated meeting rooms: ceiling microphones, dual-screen displays, room-booking integration set up. Reception desk fabricated off-site, delivered Friday for week 8 install.
Structural opening for the feature staircase formed and Building Control inspection signed off Monday. Feature staircase delivered Tuesday and installed Tuesday-Thursday: oak treads, powder-coated steel stringers in firm's brand teal, continuous toughened glass balustrade, integrated planter zone at the half-landing. Independent acoustician on site Wednesday for a three-pod sample test against the Rw 38dB target: results 39-41dB across the sample, every pod above target. Acoustic test report bound and delivered to the Operations Director.
Bespoke espresso bar joinery delivered Monday morning, installed Monday-Tuesday. Espresso machine vendor on site Wednesday for commissioning: water filter loop tested, dishwasher commissioned, four staff trained on the machine. Reception desk installed at the upper-floor welcome lobby. Furniture installed across both floors: 120 height-adjustable desks with dual monitor arms on the working floor, breakout café bench-and-stool seating, meeting pod tables and chairs in all 9 rooms.
Plants delivered Monday morning, integrated into the irrigation system and tested Monday afternoon. Snag round Tuesday: 14 items identified, 11 cleared by Wednesday afternoon, the remaining 3 cleared Thursday. Final fire alarm commissioning Thursday. Friday afternoon: keys, project file, O&M manuals, certification reports, acoustic test report, wireless heat map and irrigation warranty all handed over. Saturday-Sunday: firm's IT migration weekend with us on continuous attendance. Day-one occupancy at 8am Monday of week eleven, espresso bar serving its first coffee at 8.15am.
The technical detail behind a brand-led regional HQ delivered on a fixed price with the centrepieces costed in.
Bespoke open-tread staircase between the two floors. Solid oak treads, powder-coated steel stringers in the firm's brand teal, continuous toughened glass balustrade, integrated planter zone at the half-landing with drip irrigation. 8-week supplier lead time placed week 1.
92mm metal stud, two layers 12.5mm acoustic plasterboard each side, 100mm Rockwool RW3 core. Aluminium-framed glazed pod system with 12.7mm laminated low-iron glass on all 6 meeting pods plus 2 client rooms and team room. Acoustic seals at head, jambs and door bottom. Tested Rw 39-41dB.
Bespoke joinery counter with full M&E infrastructure: dedicated 32A circuit for espresso machine, 16A circuit for under-counter dishwasher, hot and cold supplies with water filter loop pre-machine, dishwasher waste, vented refrigeration condensate drain. Brand-teal back-painted glass splashback. Vendor-commissioned with four-staff training.
Living wall behind the breakout café serving counter, integrated planters at the staircase half-landing, ceramic planter walls flanking each of 6 meeting pod entrances, hanging suspended planters at four open-plan locations. Drip-irrigation feeds at each location off cold supply with isolation valves. 6-month irrigation warranty.
Suspended timber slat ceiling element above upper-floor welcome lobby. 200mm raised floor step-on detail. Warm 2700K lighting versus 4000K on staff side. Bespoke reception desk in oak veneer with brand-teal trim. Acoustic perimeter using thick-pile rug and panels behind the desk to mark threshold without using a doorway.
Ecophon Solo Square acoustic rafts suspended at three height levels (2.7m, 2.55m, 2.4m) for tonal distribution. 38% absorption coverage of ceiling area in open-plan zones. Reverberation time T60 below 0.55s in open-plan working zones (target < 0.6s).
Cat-6 across 132 channels (120 workstations + meeting rooms). 10Gb fibre uplink between floor IDFs. Channel certified to ANSI/TIA-568 by independent third-party tester at week 6: 132/132 first-time pass. 8 wireless APs per floor specified for 50+ concurrent connections each. Validated heat map >-65dBm across 100% usable floor.
AV in 4 rooms (multi-purpose room, 2 client rooms, team room): dual-screen 65-inch displays, ceiling microphones, single-remote room-booking integration. Single-source AV contractor delivering against a fixed scope, commissioned in week 9 with handover acceptance signed by IT lead.
A 1,200m² Cat-B regional HQ across two floors of a Wellington Place host building, delivered against a 10-week fixed-price contract with no variation orders, 132 of 132 Cat-6 channels certified at first measurement, every meeting pod above the contracted Rw 38dB target, wireless coverage validated >-65dBm across 100% of usable floor plate, and the espresso bar pulling its first coffee at 8.15am on the Monday of week eleven. The feature oak staircase sits at the centre of the lower-floor reception with its brand-teal stringers and integrated half-landing planter, exactly as the firm's interior consultant rendered it nine months before site start. The client suite on the upper floor reads as a separate room without using a doorway. The breakout café gets used as a stand-up meeting space from about 9.30am every working day.
The firm's Operations Director's framing, four months after handover: "We're getting the staff in three days a week without having to ask. The new HQ is doing what we hoped it would do, which is making people choose to be here." Hybrid attendance has settled at an average 3.2 days per week across the staff base, against an industry comparator of 2.4 for similar professional-services firms. Two senior hires accepted offers in the eight weeks following move-in, both citing the office in their decision. The firm's growth from 95 to 150 staff over the next eighteen months remains on plan; the building has the capacity, the desks are ready, and the staircase already feels like the firm's most photographed object.
We tendered three contractors. Building Group came in second on price by nineteen thousand pounds. Our Operations Director read all three methodology documents twice and chose them because their document was the only one to treat the feature staircase as a named workstream with its own lead time, the only one to cost the espresso bar M&E infrastructure into the fixed price rather than as a "specialist contractor item TBC", and the only one to include the biophilic irrigation inside the contract sum. The cheaper bids would have hit us with all three as variations during the build, by their own admission when we asked for clarification. Ten weeks later the office opened on the Monday of week eleven exactly as promised, the staircase is in every photograph the firm has taken since move-in, and our staff are choosing to come in three days a week without us having to ask. We're seven months in and the espresso machine has done somewhere over twenty thousand cups. We'd recommend Building Group without hesitation.
If you're scaling into a new regional HQ, refitting an existing floor for hybrid working, or building out a culture-led office that has to win the in-office days back from home working, we'll come out for a free site visit, walk the existing space with your operations director and head of people, and put a fixed-price methodology document on your desk — with the feature centrepieces, brand finishes and IT migration all costed in.
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