Farrow Walsh receive RICS Highly Commended Award for Marquis Place

Farrow Walsh are part of the project team that received a highly commended award at the RICS East Midlands Awards on 21 April.

Marquis Place was awarded the coveted accolade in the Commercial category of these prestigious regional Awards.

Over 350 delegates attended this year’s RICS Awards, East Midlands, held at Kelham Hall in Newark. The awards — established to celebrate the inspirational initiatives across the built environment — bring people together across all sectors to celebrate the region’s most innovative projects.

Marquis Place was a tired, derelict and unappealing building in one of the most prominent roads into the city of Leicester. There had been several attempts to redevelop the site of 136-140 London Road over many years after the travel agent, Page and Moy vacated the building. Unipad Ltd, however, saw the potential of the site and brought together a team including Farrow Walsh to look at how the building could be redeveloped.

The culmination of the project saw a complete refurbishment of the existing structure including the development of 2 restaurants together with 24 spacious apartments for the rental market.

Farrow Walsh acted as project engineers and designed a light weight timber framed upper floor to sit above the exiting building. This is a unique and innovative design giving extra capacity to the building in what is a very tight site.

Chris Farrow, managing director of Farrow Walsh and lead engineer on the project, said: ‘We are delighted to have received this recognition for Marquis Place. The project shows the innovative approaches that can be adopted to improve and expand on a building that has a limited footprint. The building now stands out from the crowd and has begun to act as a catalyst for regeneration in the surrounding area.’

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