City Place Gatwick is an office complex located on the property of London Gatwick Airport in Crawley, West Sussex, England.[1] The complex includes four buildings: The Beehive, an approximately 20,000-square-foot (1,900 m2) former terminal building at Gatwick Airport located on a 2.0-acre (0.81 ha) site; the BT building, a 131,500-square-foot (12,220 m2) facility on a 4.2-acre (1.7 ha) site, 2 City Place, a 85,000-square-foot (7,900 m2) building on a 1.9 acres (0.77 ha) plot, and 3 City Place, a 65,000-square-foot (6,000 m2) building on a 1.06-acre (0.43 ha) plot.[2] Hamiltons Architects designed the "L" shaped 3 City Place.[3]
BT Wholesale has an office in the BT building in City Place.[4] BDO International has an office at 2 City Place.[5] Beehive City Place previously housed the head offices of GB Airways, which had its head office in the Beehive,[6] and CP Ships, which had its head office in 2 City Place.[7]
City Place was developed by BAA Lynton.[8] In March 2000,[9] BT Group pre-let 14,000 square metres (150,000 sq ft) of space at City Place, which at the time had 46,500 square metres (501,000 sq ft) of available space; it was a part of an effort by BT to move employees from Central London to locations along the M25 motorway.[8] The BT 15 year lease had an initial rent of £242 per square metre. BT had an option to use an additional 10,200 square metres (110,000 sq ft) once the space became available. Construction at 1 City Place was completed in May 2002, and BT planned to occupy the building at the end of 2002.[9] In October 2002 BAA Lynton announced that it was selling 1 City Place, which was valued at £41.7 million. The real estate arm of Gulf Atlantic bought 1 City Place.[9] BAA received 14 million pounds from the sale of 1 City Place Gatwick and Heathrow South Cargo Centre 1.[10]
2 City Place was forward funded by the Co-operative Insurance Society.[9] BAA Lynton was building phase two of 2 City Place as of November 2001.[11]
The owners of the Beehive leased the building to GB Airways, and later sold it to the airline.[9] When Easyjet announced its purchase of most of GB Airways's assets in 2007, The Beehive was not included. The employment base at The Beehive closed, with 284 job losses.[12]
In 2003 CP Ships moved its European HQ in to 2 City Place. In 2004 it announced that it would move its head office from Trafalgar Square, City of Westminster to Gatwick.[13] After Hapag-Lloyd acquired CP Ships, in 2006 Hapag-Lloyd announced it would cut 500 positions at Gatwick.[14] In 2007 BDO International announced that it was moving an office to Gatwick from Bromley, London Borough of Bromley. BDO leased the entire 21,000-square-foot (2,000 m2) second floor of its new building.[15] After the purchase by easyJet occurred in January 2008, the building was retained by GB's former parent company, Bland Group.[16]
Construction on a £10.2 million, four storey office building at CityPlace was completed in September 2008.[17]
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