Tesco has put one of its principal long-term office buildings up for sale as a redevelopment opportunity, as part of its overhaul of its estate.
BNP Paribas Real Estate has been appointed to sell The Plus Building, an 80,000-square-foot office on a 9.92 acre site on Shire Park in Welwyn Garden City in Hertfordshire.
The building is being sold with vacant possession available as the supermarket chain has left most of the space in recent times. The building has been stripped out but includes lightweight ancillary accommodation at The Post Building, currently a postroom for Tesco.
Its global headquarters is located at Cirrus A nearby on Shire Park with the group owning the freehold of six office buildings.
BNP Paribas Real Estate is not attaching a guide price. Bids to retain the building as a dedicated facility or redevelop the site for alternative use are expected from logistics, residential and data centre investors.
Other tenants alongside Tesco at Shire Park include Roche Pharma, Towers Willis Watson and Morgan Sindall.
To the west of the property lies the Heart Building, the newest building on Shire Park, which is owned and part-occupied by Tesco and also provides a convenience store to the public.
Tesco gained consent in 2017 to develop a 123-bed hotel on the northern 0.72-hectare triangular part of the site for its own use.
The same year the group announced plans to cut 1,200 jobs at its Welwyn head office as part of a major cost-cutting drive. The UK's biggest supermarket told staff it was cutting about a quarter of its workforce in Welwyn Garden City and nearby Hatfield as part of turnaround plan that aimed to reduce costs by £1.5 billion.
In August, the group, which is one of the UK’s largest private-sector employers, announced it would be offering its 300,000-plus staff the right to request a flexible working pattern from their first day in the job, rather than having to wait six months under then-law.