KPN is to move into a combined office and industrial building in Utrechtâs Papendorp business park specially developed for the company by AM Vastgoed. KPN has agreed to lease the building, with a lettable area of 14,000 m2, for a period of ten years. AM Vastgoed is in talks with an investor on the sale of the building.
The new KPN building will go up immediately alongside the A2 motorway. It features two towers, one nine storeys high and the other ten, separated by over 30 metres. The towers are linked at ground-floor and first-floor level by a spacious entrance foyer, part lowered into the ground. The towers are also joined by a three-storey span on the sixth, seventh and eighth floors, creating a transparent and truly spectacular building, in line with the outline plan for Papendorp.
Construction will start in the second half of this year, with completion scheduled for the first half of 2007. Seventy per cent of the floor space will be given over to offices, the rest being used for industrial purposes. There will be parking for more than 270 cars, hidden from view in a half-underground car park.
Selection of AM
KPNâs selection of AM Vastgoedâs proposal was based on design quality, financing arrangements and experience with previous projects on behalf of KPN, such as the development of the companyâs headquarters on Maanplein in The Hague. The new building for KPN is being developed to a design concept produced by architects Veenendaal Bocanet + partners and T + T Design, AMâs own in-house design group. The Papendorp business park is located immediately adjacent to the junction between the A2 and A12 motorways and is part of the Utrecht-Leidsche Rijn district. In Papendorp, AM Vastgoed has recently developed several image-defining office buildings for companies in the ICT sector, including the offices of HP Nederland (40,000 m2), Cap Gemini (50,000 m2) and Atos Origin (40,000 m2). Projects like these are in line with the AM Vastgoed policy of focusing on custom developments for endusers in the business premises market.
Source: AM
