Crown Place Portsmouth

The Surrey Street project comprised the redevelopment of an inner-city derelict site.

First, the derelict site required asbestos removal and demolition of the existing building, followed by the design and build of a 23-storey tower, providing 576 beds together with associated external works, drainage and statutory services.

The site is located in the centre of Portsmouth and is adjacent to a number of other buildings and roads. This presented the team with various challenges including working within a restricted site area, asbestos removal, derelict building issues, adjacent occupied buildings and main roads.

Our role

Currie & Brown was appointed as employer’s agent and cost consultant to provide cost planning, procurement advice, contract and post-contract services. We also provided lifecycle cost reports to achieve credits under the ‘BREEAM 2014 Man 02’ requirements.

Added value

The detail of our cost planning enabled the client to review various options for the final design. This included:

• Optimising room layouts to increase efficiency without having to increase the overall floor area or building height

• Demonstrating the inefficiency and high cost of the basement, resulting in omission of the basement

• Considering the options of a precast concrete structure and external envelope against in situ concrete flat slabs with ‘traditional’ cladding system – an in situ system was selected

• Considering the use of electric heating instead of gas-fired central heating boilers and radiator heating

• Using alternative rain screen and panel cladding systems to meet planning and façade engineering requirements for high-rise buildings