Legal & General Investment Management has signed pharmaceuticals giant Johnson & Johnson for one of the largest office lettings in the Thames Valley in recent years, a 97,000-square-foot headquarters in Maidenhead.
Market sources said that American multinational, pharmaceutical and medical technologies corporation J&J has gone under offer to take the remaining space at the 130,000-square-foot Tempo Maidenhead building at 20 Grenfell Road, which nearing completion. It is taking 97,000 square feet across the ground, first and second floors.
It is unclear what parts of Johnson & Johnson will move to the development but it has seven locations in the UK including the 205,000-square-foot 50-100 Holmers Farm Way in High Wycombe and an 100,000 square foot office at Pinewood Campus in Wokingham in Berkshire.
It joins tools giant Stanley Black & Decker which CoStar News revealed had taken 30,066 square feet on the top floor last year.
Tempo sits in L&G’s Managed Fund which invests in freehold and leasehold property across the UK.
Tempo has also signed Oxford-based Missing Bean, a specialist in ethically sourced artisan coffee. The café, which will be open to residents of Maidenhead and is at street level, will become a wine bar in the evening.
Bray Fox Smith and Knight Frank are the office leasing agents for the development. CBRE is advising Johnson & Johnson.
All parties declined to comment.
LGIM Real Assets gained consent in 2021 from the Royal Borough of Windsor & Maidenhead for the refurbishment and development of the 112,000-square-foot Star House office building in Maidenhead town centre.
The plans for the four-storey building, which sits on an 1.4-acre site next to the train station, were to improve the "quality and usability of the site and create a more attractive and sustainable office building" with L&G targeting an EPC A and BREEAM Outstanding rating.
Legal & General bought the building in 2015 when it bought the freehold interest in 310,304 square feet of offices and retail in Maidenhead from British Land for £90,200,000, reflecting a net initial yield of 5.9%.
Mark Stansfield, head of UK analytics, said: "The Johnson & Johnson deal is the latest in a string of large deals in the Thames Valley as appetite for prime offices picks up heading into the spring. It comes hot on the heels of the Stanley Black & Decker deal at the same building in November, the big AA commitment in Basingstoke in February and increasing signs of occupier interest at the new Station Hill development in Reading. The Johnson & Johnson deal is Maidenhead's largest office deal this century, and indicates strong demand for prime, ultra-sustainable offices with good transport connections, even in a town with one of the highest office vacancy rates in the country."