PLANS for a major new owner/occupier office scheme are set to be submitted next month to City of York Council, to meet what is clearly a burgeoning demand at Monks Cross, Huntington.

Even before the first brick has been laid for the £1.7 million Omega scheme, which is about to start near the Norwich Union office building there, all six of its planned offices have been snapped up.

The scheme starts in October and is not scheduled for completion until April next year.

"Yet we have had to turn people away," said Richard Peak, director of the Helmsley Group, part of the Monks Cross Partnership, which is developing 40 acres in a £60 million investment in the next ten years.

Now the developers want similar offices to Omega to be built between the Omega site and Norwich Union.

The hope is that if it gets planning clearance, then the moment contractors finish working on Omega, they can transfer to the new development in April or May, 2006.

Already one firm, thwarted on the Omega site, has earmarked a 4,000 sq ft office block in the proposed scheme for a purpose-built base, said Mr Peak.

Also proposed are 6,000 sq ft and 12,000 sq ft offices plus a small terrace of sister buildings to the Omega scheme, which Mr Peak expects to be sold not long after planning clearance is given.

He said: "Investors are turning from housing, which has become more uncertain lately, into commercial property, which is buoyant."

Many, he said, were using their pension funds to make the purchases. "They are able to get high-quality offices at affordable prices."

The demand has been proven in York outside Monks Cross too, he said, pointing to Isis, a four-office block development due for completion in October at Ouse acres, the former RR Donnelley printing works off Boroughbridge Road.

Mr Peak said: "We are about to instruct solicitors on one of the units and there are serious talks going on over the remaining offices.

"It confirms that there is a big push towards people owning their own buildings and that if you provide the right products to the right quality at the right price, then there is still a very buoyant market."

Updated: 09:14 Tuesday, August 16, 2005