Landmark topping out celebrated at Cambridge’s Mill Yard development

A ceremony has been held at Mill Yard, a new mixed-use campus in central Cambridge, to mark the topping out of the development’s main office building, MY Central.

Mill Yard on Devonshire Road will regenerate a key part of Cambridge into a sustainable new neighbourhood. When complete, the site will feature three office buildings: Mill Yard (MY) North, South, and Central, as well as two residential buildings and a nursery situated around a publicly accessible park.

The £180m commercial and residential development is being delivered by Railpen, its development partner, Socius, and lead contractor, Morgan Sindall Construction. Mill Yard is targeting completion in 2027 and forms part of Railpen’s Cambridge innovation cluster.

The five-storey MY Central, which is located in the centre of the development and will house commercial office spaces, achieved its topping out on Tuesday 10th March. To celebrate the moment, key stakeholders from the project team and community toured the site and took in the view from MY Central’s recently completed roof.

The new neighbourhood will offer 110,000 sq. ft of flexible workplaces, 70 build-to-rent apartments, a 2,100 sq. ft nursery, a restaurant, a café / bakery and an outdoor pavilion for community events.

The site’s workplaces will overlook landscaped gardens and incorporate layouts designed to facilitate innovation and collaboration. Railpen is targeting NABERS Design for Performance 5-star and BREEAM Outstanding ratings, ensuring the workplaces meet the highest standards of sustainability and environmental performance.

Mill Yard’s buildings will be all electric, using a combination of on and off-site renewable energy sources. Utilising its Intelligent Solutions approach and the digital carbon calculation tool CarboniCa, Morgan Sindall has minimised Mill Yard’s environmental footprint, with 99% of the waste generated being diverted from landfill and setting a potential embodied carbon saving goal of 5,013 tonnes. A 280% biodiversity net gain target will be met by installing bat, bird, and bee boxes, alongside green roofs, hedgehog habitats, and evergreen planters.

The neighbourhood will provide 1.55 acres of publicly accessible green space, with over 120 trees, edible and ornamental planting. The gardens will incorporate a new community pavilion, designed by George King Architects, as well as a perimeter running track, secure cycle parking, and end of journey facilities.