Work on a 220K SF speculative office building at the Circle Square development in Oxford Road will begin on-site in January.

The £54M project is a direct response to increasing demand for workspace from the leading science and technology sector, Bruntwood SciTech said.

Circle Square’s first two commercial buildings — No.1 and No.2 Circle Square — are under construction and have received "exceptional levels of interest," Bruntwood said. Global technology company Hewlett Packard Enterprise announced in December it is to bring 300 employees to No.1 Circle Square and Bruntwood said other significant pre-lets are under discussion.

The design process for the third building is underway, led by architect FCBS, which designed No.1 and No.2 Circle Square.

The 1.2M SF of offices and 1,700 residential units at Circle Square are a joint venture between Bruntwood SciTech and Vita Group.

“With No.1 and No.2 Circle Square opening in summer 2020, we are delighted to be in a position where the level of interest and excitement around what we are creating at Circle Square has led to us accelerating the development of No.3 Circle Square," Bruntwood SciTech Managing Director Tom Renn said.

A planning application is set to be submitted in September, with the aim of work on-site starting in early 2020 and completing in April 2022.