CMK Central Office Building

Project Overview

The CMK Central Office Building is an 8-storey, 80,000 sq ft Grade A commercial development located on Midsummer Boulevard in Central Milton Keynes. Designed as a modern, flexible workspace, the building features floor plates of 10,000 sq ft with column-free spans, floor-to-ceiling glazing, and a dramatic double-height reception atrium.

The steel-frame structure incorporates a high-performance curtain wall facade, raised access floors, comfort cooling, and LED lighting throughout — all designed to achieve BREEAM Excellent certification. A rooftop terrace offers panoramic views across Milton Keynes and provides outdoor amenity space for tenants.

Delivered for Saxon Property Group as a speculative office development, the building was fully let within 12 months of practical completion to three blue-chip tenants, validating the quality and specification of the completed building.

The Challenge

The Central Milton Keynes site imposed strict planning constraints around building height, massing, and visual impact on the surrounding grid-road streetscape. The tight urban plot required careful management of construction logistics, with limited laydown space and busy adjacent roads.

Structural design had to accommodate tenant flexibility, requiring long-span steel beams to create column-free floor plates. Achieving BREEAM Excellent demanded close coordination between architectural, structural, and MEP disciplines from the earliest design stages.

Our Solution

We established an off-site fabrication strategy for the structural steelwork, with bolted connections designed for rapid erection. This approach reduced the structural frame programme from 16 to 11 weeks, a 30% time saving that benefited the overall project timeline.

A just-in-time delivery strategy minimised material storage on the constrained site, with dedicated logistics coordinators managing vehicle movements and crane operations. The BREEAM Excellent requirement was embedded in our procurement process, with all subcontractors assessed against environmental performance criteria.

Weekly design coordination workshops with the full consultant team resolved potential conflicts proactively, resulting in zero critical design changes during the construction phase.

Results & Impact

The building achieved a BREEAM Excellent score of 73.2%, exceeding the 70% threshold. Energy performance modelling confirmed a 35% reduction in operational carbon compared to Part L baseline requirements.

Saxon Property Group achieved a 22% uplift in rental values compared to comparable CMK office space, attributed to the building's specification and BREEAM rating. The project was completed on programme and within 1.5% of the original budget, demonstrating robust cost management throughout.