1. Purpose of the invitation
Consultants are invited to examine other pages on this website for the summary of our five key projects. LRC and its partners have exposed these to public consultation and the Company, along with key partners and the public generally, support them strongly. They are therefore established as a consensus-based way forward, and will shortly be reflected in the City Council’s amendments to its Local Plan.
The next step for LRC and its partners is to translate these intentions and general diagrams into specific, detailed frameworks for delivery. In particular, we need to provide a clear and practical urban design framework, combined with detailed working-out of changes to the highway system within and around these key projects.
At this stage, we invite consultants who feel they could meet our needs to register a potential interest, by supplying the basic information set out below. The balance of required skills, and indicative timescales, vary from project to project, and consultants may therefore wish to respond differently for each. Our aim is to assemble a list of consultants whose skills and experience appear to qualify them for consideration, from which we will draw a tender list for each project at the appropriate time.
2. List of projects, anticipated skill requirements,
management and contact details
This section sets out our anticipated requirements separately for each project. Contact details are provided, but our staff size requires that contact is only made to meet needs for specific clarification rather than for general introduction. The projects referred to are those shown on other website pages.
2.1. A New Community - City Living Project Area
Project Manager : Peter Conboy, LRC Development Manager
Key needs: A high quality but deliverable urban design framework to guide the physical regeneration of the St. George’s North area of Leicester City Centre with a series of mixed-use development phases, incorporating a residential element.
The framework will identify discrete blocks of development within the overall area, including proposals regarding suitability of buildings for retention and refurbishment for change of use, or alternatively for demolition and site redevelopment, together with all public realm and local highway requirements.
The final solutions will provide integrated proposals to maximise the accessibility and permeability of the City Living area and will inform planning stage design and detailed development appraisal work to be undertaken in partnership with private sector partners. Interactive material will be required for marketing purposes.
Skill mix: Urban design skills need to conceptualise the built area and optimise its relationship with a high quality public realm. Urban design needs to work very closely with the technical side to produce a single, wholly integrated piece of work, which meets our quality aspirations.
Consultants : We seek either a single firm or a consortium, with demonstrable experience in high quality urban design, encompassing physical regeneration of complex inner city environments. We anticipate that the team will combine urban design and architectural skills with highways, transport and cost consultancy.
The instruction will include a requirement to consult with Leicester Regeneration Company’s partners and key stakeholders in the community. The required output is a comprehensive Urban Design Framework for the proposed City Living area of Leicester.
Timescale: We require expressions of interest to be made by 14th July and intend to brief short listed consultants on the 18 July. Final interviews will be held in the week commencing 18 August. We will appoint as soon as practicable thereafter, with a view to completion by mid December 2003.
2.2 The Prime Office Core
CONTRACTS NOW PLACED
Project Manager: Chris White, LRC Development Director
Key needs: a bold, quality-led but deliverable urban design framework to guide the development of the 50,000 sq m office core, centred around a new urban space of the highest quality as an entry-point to the city. The existing station will be relocated to front on to this space, and practical suggestions are needed for the re-use of the existing, listed station. A new bus-rail interchange and multi-level station car park will complete the project. It is dependent on reducing the severe impact of the inner ring road, which runs through the site, and options for downgrading or re-routing it will need to be defined and chosen between, with full technical back-up.
The framework will need to balance the quantum of floor space needed to meet our economic and viability objectives with quality in architecture, design briefing, open space and public realm, connectivity within and beyond the site, and realism in its potential for delivery.
Skill mix: We anticipate a consultant team combining technical skills, especially highways, with urban design skills. The technical elements will need to include outline design and testing of alternative road layouts and of the transport interchange facilities. Familiarity with these issues and with major rail and bus station work is essential.
Urban design skills need to conceptualise the built area and optimise its relationship with a high quality public realm, and to work very closely with the technical side to produce a single, wholly integrated piece of work that meets our quality aspirations.
2.3 The Waterside
CONTRACTS NOW PLACED
Project Manager: Caroline Simpson-Watkinson, LRC Development Manager
Key needs: An urban design framework, which meets in full our aims of a major mixed use scheme, focused around new water space, to link the city centre with the waterside across a substantially downgraded inner ring road. It will need to produce realistic, high-quality solutions to the issues of ring road change, of removing a major disused rail viaduct surrounded by small businesses, of integration with Hammerson’s proposals for extending the adjacent Shires shopping centre, and of maximising the potential of Leicester’s underused waterfront and new marina as a combination of high quality and commercial attractiveness, to act as a beacon to the private sector on other sections of the waterside.
Skill mix: high-quality urban design skills, combined with a realistic view on deliverability, are essential, and must include substantial experience of waterside regeneration. Equally important are highway engineering skills to define, and present insufficient detail for rigorous testing, options for substantial change to the adjacent section of the inner ring road. We aim to reduce radically its detrimental effect to pedestrian movement between the city centre and waterfront, and if necessary to achieve this will contemplate change to its current function as a through route. The consultants will need to work closely with Hammerson’s consultants, whose proposals for doubling the adjacent Shires centre will be reaching the detail stage at the same time.
2.4 Abbey Meadows
CONTRACTS NOW PLACED
Project Manager:- Peter Conboy, LRC Development Manager
Key needs: a masterplan and conceptual design framework for a major Science and Technology Park adjoining the River Soar and National Space Centre together with a new canal-side city living area. The required output will comprise a framework for a high quality working environment suitable for business start-ups and incubation as well as a suitable location for attracting the best technology companies, with an emphasis on business sectors aligned to the internationally renowned research programmes at the University of Leicester and De Montfort University. The masterplan should deal with all local highway requirements and in-park infrastructure, scope design of first stage buildings and an integrated landscape plan and design style / guideline document for the park which will inform planning stage design and detailed development appraisal work. Interactive material will be required for marketing purposes. The periphery of the intervention area on Abbey Park Road will comprise high quality urban living space and an outline design of this, including local highway and other infrastructure requirements, which will need to be integrated into the masterplan.
Skill Mix: Consultants, either a single firm or in consortium, are sought with demonstrable experience in the master planning and design of high quality Science Parks, encompassing physical infrastructure and building layout, outline building design and planning and design of hard and soft landscaping. In addition, there will need to be high quality urban living space design skills to deal with the Abbey Park Road area. The instruction will include a requirement to consult with Leicester Regeneration Company’s partners and stakeholders in the community.
3. Details required
We hope for a substantial response to this invitation and therefore need the following minimum information to enable us to draw fair comparisons and to select invitees to tender:
1. Name of consultancy and practice particulars including turnover and number of staff in different specialisms
2. Likely composition of the team, including sub-consultants, with the above details, and names of likely key team members and their normal working locations
3. Examples of comparable work elsewhere, particularly those resulting in successful development on the ground, with clear definition of the consultants’ role in it
4. Confirmation of likely availability in the periods indicated.Please attach a fee schedule of day rates for the individuals identified in point 2, although no fee bid is required at this stage.
Expressing an interest does not carry any guarantee of being invited to tender and LRC reserves the right to change the indications of its intentions given above.
As indicated, we would discourage direct approaches to LRC’s small staff team other than for genuine clarification of the above.