Panattoni, a logistics real estate developer, has broken ground on a brownfield site, Panattoni Park Swindon, in the south of England, UK.
The project is said to become one of the UK's largest brownfield sites.
It also reportedly marks the beginning of a £900m ($1.14bn) investment into the UK economy over the coming decade.
The ground-breaking ceremony was attended by UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, Swindon's Members of Parliament Robert Buckland and Justin Tomlinson, as well as Panattoni executives.
Sunak said: “What we are able to celebrate today is one of the largest investments in the south, one of the largest development sites in the south, that is going to create thousands and thousands of jobs and that is fantastic for the local area.”
The project will feature 11 buildings, providing a total of 7.2 million square feet of advanced real estate space for logistics, manufacturing, and data centre uses.
Panattoni Park Swindon is aimed at achieving net-zero carbon in construction.
It also plans to receive the Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Methodology (BREEAM) 'Excellent' certification, Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) A+ rating, and achieve a 10% net gain in biodiversity.
The site has already secured detailed planning consent for one unit of 1.25 million square feet and outline planning permission for the entire park.
The development is expected to create up to 7,000 new on-site jobs and an additional 9,000 indirect jobs in the supply chain over the next ten years.
Panattoni managing director Matthew Byrom said: “We are confident that this significant level of inward investment will lead to the creation of thousands of new jobs and have a substantive ‘ripple-out’ effect to both the local and regional economy.
“Panattoni Park Swindon will deliver around 7,500 new jobs which is twice the number afforded by the site when it was closed by Honda in July 2021. There are also likely to be many additional opportunities for primary and secondary suppliers.”
Infrastructure and demolition works are underway, with construction for the speculative development phase scheduled to start later this year.
