Growing building consultancy firm secures ‘ideal’ Newcastle city centre office move

A North East building consultancy firm is set to launch a new office in central Newcastle next month to accommodate its growing team.

Lantern Building Consultancy has signed a five-year lease on offices at Melbourne Street’s Generator Studios after securing a raft of new instructions in 2023.

The firm will now embark on a programme of fit out works which will see the 1,500 sq.ft space customised for Lantern Building Consultancy’s operations. The new office will initially accommodate a team of five staff who will relocate from the firm’s current base in Jesmond, with Lantern actively looking to recruit further in 2024.

Launched in 2021, Lantern Building Consultancy provides building surveying services including party wall advice, expert witness reports, housing disrepair claims and reinstatement valuations.

Over the last 12 months, directors Martin Smith and Alex Carter have secured new projects with public sector organisations, property companies and commercial occupiers, leading to the appointment of building surveyors Graham Hill and Dan Guite, as well as operations manager Szofia Szabo.

Lantern is providing strategic advice to Northumberland County Council in regard to housing stock across Northumberland and has been retained by Entain Group to defend dilapidations claims on its behalf for retail premises between Norwich and Berwick. 

The firm has also been awarded various project management instructions for office and retail projects in Sheffield, Newcastle and Sunderland on behalf of several pension funds. Martin Smith, formerly a partner at Sanderson Weatherall prior to founding Lantern, believes there are many reasons to be optimistic about the outlook for the region’s property sector.

Martin said: “As a combined team, we offer a great deal of expertise and we are delighted to be working with many highly regarded clients across a broad range of projects. There is real optimism amongst our client base, with many of them working on bringing forward new projects which in turn will deliver significant investment within the region and beyond. 

“As a consequence, we need to expand our team further this year and our new base at Generator Studios is the ideal platform to position us for further growth.”

Close to the firm’s new base, Lantern has recently managed the structural repair of the grade II listed Castlegate Building on behalf of City Church Newcastle and is currently completing surveys of around 200 properties across the North East for The Hospital of God.

Director Alex Carter added: “Generator Studios provides us with the ideal working environment to service our growing portfolio of projects and is a fantastic workplace for the team. We look forward to taking occupation in March and we are eager to expand the team in the coming months.”