Contractor appointed to £41m refurbishment of Leeds’ Merrion House

BAM Construction has been appointed by property developer Town Centre Securities to deliver the refurbishment of the 1960s office building known as Merrion House in the north of Leeds.

BAM will deliver the remodelling and refurbishment of the office building which until recently was occupied by employees of Leeds City Council.

BAM will also be responsible for fitting out the building. The Council has a relocation strategy during the construction phase and on completion, it will consolidate some of its smaller offices into these new state of the art premises.

Comprising ten floors, Merrion House is situated within the Merrion shopping centre. The programme includes an element of new build over seven and eight storeys to increase the floor area and capacity.

Merrion Centre is one of four office buildings that house over 2000 people including Town Centre House, a scheme where Town Centre Securities also used BAM; and it is next to BAM-built Leeds Arena.

Kelvin Pollard, BAM’s construction director, said: “The first phase of works is to strip down the pre-cast panels leaving the concrete frame. This is a controlled de-construction rather than a demolition and it will take two tower cranes to achieve it.

“Then we will re-clad the building into a fully glazed and curtain walled structure. There are several complex aspects to the works, both the structural works and the M&E require particular expertise and experience. BAM’s specialist services engineering business will help us deliver what will be a striking transformation. This is going to be a very visible building as you enter the city of Leeds from the north.”

BAM is employing Building Information Modelling (BIM) to assist its planning. The company recently became the first in the UK to achieve accreditation from the BSI for its approach to BIM data management, a critical part of the collaborative modelling process.

The scheme is valued at around £41m and is scheduled to be completed by the end of 2017.