AN innovative approach to the last-minute financial restructuring of a construction project will help provide a £600,000 purpose-built new office premises in Darlington for the Northern operating company of a national aggregates supplier without capital outlay.

A switch from the more usual construction contract of the design-built, two-storey offices at Morton Park to a design-build-lease arrangement will enable RMC Aggregates (Northern) to obtain bespoke offices and lease the building when it is complete.

Usually such a change from freehold to leasehold would have forced RMC Aggregates to instigate a complex series of negotiations by approaching a property developer. This would have delayed and altered the course of the project but, through its concept-to-completion service, Severfield-Reeve DesignBuild adapted the structure of the deal by switching to a leasehold arrangement.

The company, the design-build subsidiary of Severfield-Rowen, Thirsk, has now purchased the site, which was originally going to be bought by RMC Aggregates, and designed the building project. It will now construct the new office premises and lease them to RMC in a way which accommodates their financial preference.

Director/general manager of RMC Aggregates (Northern) Stuart Keighley said: "Our business has expanded considerably since we moved into our original offices in Yarm in 1996. We have recently been bursting at the seams so we desperately need new premises.

"However, even though we were part way through the project in terms of the design and purchase of the site, we needed to change the financial arrangements to suit our overall group strategy. Severfield-Reeve Projects has been accommodating and provided the same building on the same site but on a leasehold basis."

Severfield-Reeve Projects managing director Lindsay Ross said: "We originally spoke with RMC Aggregates (Northern) in January 1999 to assess their requirements for the new offices. The full design and costings were finalised in August, 1999.

"Up to that time RMC wanted to proceed on a design build basis. However, due to their financial preferences, the pr oject has been converted into a design-build-lease package whereby we purchased the site and will build the new offices for RMC who will then lease them from us.

"This is a prime example of the flexibility we are prepared to consider in order to accommodate our clients' requirements.

RMC will get the purpose-designed building they require with the necessary funding arrangements to suit their financial parameters."

Work on the offices started on site in July and should be finished at the end of the year