A huge HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) department employing more than 2,000 civil servants has been announced as the first tenant of the £500m Ruskin Square development next to East Croydon station.
The tax authority has signed a 25-year lease to occupy nearly all of the nine-storey first tower at the site, in a move that developers Stanhope and Schroder heralded as a "further vote of confidence in the regeneration and revival of Croydon".
In November HMRC announced it was closing all its 170 across the country and moving staff into 13 new regional centres - including one based in Croydon - in a bid to save £100m a year.
At the time, then-HMRC chief executive Lin Homer said Croydon had been chosen in part due to the availability of cheap, modern office space.
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David Camp, chief executive of Stanhope, said: “HMRC’s decision to locate one of its major new office hubs at Ruskin Square in Croydon will be a further vote of confidence in the regeneration and revival of Croydon and Stanhope and Schroders’ creation of an attractive and vibrant destination and sense of arrival at East Croydon station.”
HMRC has agreed to lease about 184,000 sq ft in the site's first building, which will make it the sole tenant of the nine-storey office block apart from two ground floor shops.
The deal also gives HMRC the option to lease more space at Ruskin Square.
An aerial map of the Ruskin Square development
The centre at Ruskin Square, which is expected to open next summer and has been designed by architects shedkm, is the first of the new 13 regional centres to be confirmed by the tax authority.
A Stanhope spokesman said: "The development has been chosen for its easy-to-reach location, with excellent transport links and quick access to central London and a design which will provide HMRC with the digital infrastructure required by a modern tax authority."
The building will house about 2,500 civil servants from across HMRC, including specialist teams who will work on debt management, fraud and criminal investigations and tax compliance, the spokesman said.
HMRC chief executive Jon Thompson said: "This first regional centre in Croydon is the next step in HMRC’s transformation into a digitally-advanced tax authority.
"By bringing various teams across HMRC together and investing in skills, career development, sophisticated IT and data analytics, we will increase our effectiveness in providing modern customer services and cracking down on tax cheats.
"We are delighted to have agreed terms for the Ruskin Square building; this is the beginning of a process that will make HMRC an important contributor to the economy and to communities in and around Croydon.”
The Ruskin Square development, dubbed the East Croydon "gateway," is adjacent to East Croydon station and covers two million square feet.
Stanhope, funded by investors Schroders, began work on the first two tower blocks for project in September 2014.
The 22-storey and nine-storey towers, encompassing 161 homes, are scheduled for completion in summer 2016.
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