Three firms eye £160m Oxford Science Park deal

Three firms are chasing the next phase of life sciences work being planned for Oxford with a £160m scheme at the city’s science park the latest deal to be put up for grabs.

Oxford Science Park, which is majority owned by Magdalen College, Oxford, is home to over 3,000 people and more than 100 businesses.

The park wants to build three new laboratory and office buildings on Plots 23-26 of the site with work set to be completed by early 2025.

In all, 400,000 sq ft of laboratory and office facilities will be built to provide space for existing park occupiers and new arrivals.

Building understands Mace, Laing O’Rourke and Bouygues are preparing to submit final bids for the job which was given planning in February.

The buildings have been designed by Scott Brownrigg with others working on the deal including project manager Bidwells, M&E consultant Hoare Lea and QS Turner & Townsend Alinea, which is expected to move out of its current office at Cannon Street in the City to T&T’s office at nearby One New Change over the summer.

The park was opened in 1991 and is home to start-ups as well as major firms including Blue Earth Diagnostics, Oxford Nanopore Technologies and Intuitive Surgical.

Oxford Science Park said it wants to create over 500,000 sq ft of additional laboratory and office space over the next three years.

Meanwhile, Laing O’Rourke is to start work later this summer on a huge cancer research facility in Oxford after the plans, drawn up by Foster & Partners, were given the green light by city planners last week.

The £300m-plus scheme for the Los Angeles-based Ellison Institute for Transformative Medicine (EITM) consists of a complex of buildings spread across two sites and linked by a 250m-long elevated timber walkway.

It is being bankrolled by American billionaire Lawrence J Ellison, who founded EITM in 2009 and has an estimated fortune of $91bn (£74bn). Ridge is project and cost manager on the scheme.