Two major signings for the Beehive at Gatwick

Two major new occupiers have signed for a total of 128 workstations at

Orega’s Beehive business centre near Gatwick airport in West Sussex, taking the building to 80% occupancy within a year of its opening.

APV, which is part of US-based industrial conglomerate SPX, has signed for 79 workstations, totalling 4,500 sq ft, in the business centre. It will be moving over from its City Place offices opposite The Beehive in March. The new space will bring together employees from APV - a global manufacturer of processed equipment and engineered solutions – and its parent company SPX under one roof. North Carolina-based SPX acquired APV from Invensys plc in January 2008.

International chartered aircraft service Meridian Aviation has signed for 49 workstations at The Beehive as its new headquarters and takes full occupation this month. It previously occupied offices at Norfolk House within Gatwick’s South Terminal, but needed more office space to meet its expansion plans. The agreement is the business centre’s first with an aircraft carrier and is highly apt given the building’s early role as the original Gatwick Airport terminal in the 1930s.

Although these two deals are the business centre’s largest to date, they follow a string of smaller deals at The Beehive since last summer. These include two airline uniform companies: Wensum and Arria; Complete Homecare, which organises home carers; Prospect Tree Healthcare; accountant Hudson Conway, Paviom, an architectural lighting company; Southern Adolescent Care and US-based Bell Helicopter.

They join existing clients It’s Learning, Logica, Polarcus and G&H Engineering, with the latter two recently having extended their licence agreements for another six months.

By the time APV moves in this March, the 22,000 sq ft building will have reached 80% occupancy a year after it opened as a state-of-the-art business centre.

Linda Burton, customer service and sales manager for Orega at The Beehive, says: “Our latest signings with APV and Meridian Aviation are testimony to the building’s broad appeal, attracting companies from a range of sectors and including both niche and major international players. As well as the fantastic workplace setting, in this wonderful art deco building, occupiers are drawn to the flexible packages that we can offer which give us the edge over more conventional offices.”