Through the creation of Wellington Place, we have transformed an underused retail park into one of the UK’s most successful city centre regeneration projects, featuring exceptional buildings that rank amongst the most sustainable in the UK, but also to a thriving and fun work environment.
It’s always exciting to receive official recognition, and 2023 really has been the year for it, having scooped up multiple award wins and nominations in many different disciplines. Here’s a roundup Wellington Place’s 2023 award success.
Placemaking
Whether it’s designing the public spaces to benefit the people that use them, celebrating historic features on site, or our year-round events programme and partnerships with local charities and social enterprises, we’re always looking at how we can engage and bring people together in meaningful ways.
We have a people first approach that fosters a unique culture and community that goes beyond bricks and mortar, and this commitment to placemaking was recognised on a national level when we were crowned the Placemaking Award at the Property Awards by Property Week. That’s not all, as we also made the shortlist for Place of the Year at the Pineapple Awards!
The Property Week judges praised the development’s “commitment to long-term placemaking”, its “ESG commitment” and the inclusion of “bold social impact initiatives.”
Photo credit: Natalie Entwistle
ESG
Wellington Place has recently set a new standard for future proofed, sustainable design in Yorkshire and beyond. One success story of 2023 was the opening of 11 & 12 Wellington Place, the first outside of London and only the fourth in the UK to achieve a pioneering NABERS Design Reviewed Target of Five Stars or above.
The commitment to ESG continues beyond the buildings – in the period between 2019 – 2022, Wellington Place contributed a total Social and Local Economic Value of £44.5m, the construction of the buildings employed over 1,500 local people and facilitated hundreds of apprenticeship placements. For outstanding ESG efforts, we won in the ESG Excellence category at The Yorkshires – Commercial Real Estates Awards!
At The Yorkshires, the judges said: “Many of the schemes entered for this year’s competition displayed excellent sustainability credentials, but this building (11&12) sets a new standard for Leeds.”
The sustainable design of 11 & 12 Wellington Place, and commitment to local community, were also key factors in our success at the Yorkshire Business Insider Property Awards where we won Commercial Development of the Year.
Architecture and design
Our development partners tp bennet and Curtins also won a variety of awards for the impactful architecture and design of 11 & 12 Wellington Place. The buildings striking look includes a bronze exterior offering an eye-catching contrast alongside their silver-coloured window frames, and a feature bridge that links buildings 11 & 12 together.
The awards they won included Major Project at Schüco Excellence Awards in association with Architecture Today; New Build Commercial at Manchester Society of Architects Awards; Sustainability Award at Leeds Architectures Awards and Best Large Project at Yorkshire IStructE.
The judges for the Major Project award said: “The jury applauded the scheme’s technical and environmental prowess, with special praise reserved for the façade’s high levels of surface articulation and considered approach to solar control.”
Photo credit: Paul Stott – Paul & Tim Photography
Construction
When it came to the construction sector, our construction partner Wates was able to capture the attention of judges for its future-proofing contributions to 11 & 12 Wellington Place.
Throughout the build Wates was committed to using new techniques and software to improve quality, all whilst ensuring the site was as sustainable as possible and promoted biodiversity.
The buildings were shortlisted in the Project of the Year and Low Carbon Award categories at the Construction News Awards, as well as Net Zero Development at the Building Awards.
A massive congratulations to everyone involved in the development of Wellington Place, and more specifically during the creation and construction of 11 & 12 Wellington Place over the past couple of years, and playing their part in creating something worthy of so much recognition.
