St James’ Place

Nestled next to Guernsey’s Royal Court building and the iconic St James venue, this new office building is in the very heart of St Peter Port. With spectacular sea views from the higher levels, it is certainly making the most of its location. But that location poses its own challenges when it comes to the construction.

When construction is complete on the St James’ Place office building, it will offer around 18,500 sq.ft. of Grade A office space in the centre of Town. But Steve Marie, managing director of developer Comprop, admits that squeezing that space out of the site was a challenge: “It’s a very tricky site so it took some work and real planning to get that efficiency from it. We also had the issue when we were looking at it that we didn’t know what the ground conditions were going to be like and whether there would be issues there, but luckily it’s worked out really well.”

While the ground conditions were in its favour, main contractor Rihoy & Son has had plenty of other issues to deal with on the site. Managing director, Gavin Rihoy, said it all comes down to location: “We are working on a postage stamp site with roads on either side. We’ve got the use of the road that runs between St James and the Royal Court for the duration of the contract which helps a lot.

“To make the site workable, the first thing we did was build a big concrete box which will eventually be the carpark part of the complex. That means that we do have space to use as a laydown area during the rest of the project. It’s also about being organised. We have to think through the logistics of what we need and ensure that materials are coming in sequentially as and when we need them.”

IT’S ALL WORKING OUT REALLY WELL SO FAR... I THINK IT’S THE BEST TEAM WE’VE EVER HAD.

With that attitude, the build is progressing well so far. The curtain walling and glazed façade are now being completed, with the aim of the building being wind and watertight soon. Once that has happened, Rihoy’s is keen to press ahead with the internal fit-out in time for the July completion date, as Gavin explained: “Inside, we have started fitting out the building with the mechanical and electrical installations and gearing up for all of the fit-out packages. We have a whole team including engineers, a site manager and surveyors on site now and they will manage the process until completion. It’s a complex site and we want to make sure we get it right.” Rihoy’s is also responsible for the fit-out for anchor tenant Grant Thornton, who will use the majority of the building when they move into three floors of the new development. However, the ground floor suite remains available to prospective tenants.

Despite the usual Covid challenges, the project is still keeping to its programme, something Steve attributes to the strength of the team behind it: “It’s all working out really well so far and I would certainly put that down to our project team, Jason Powers Consultants, and Rihoy’s. We’ve been working with them a lot recently [on Admiral Park] and I think it’s the best team we’ve ever had.”