22nd Jul 2009 - Massimo Restaurants move to Scotland's largest office development

Massimo Restaurants, one of Scotland's leading Italian restaurant groups, has announced a major deal with the Maxim office park development in Lanarkshire, Scotland.

The company has revealed a £1.3 million investment deal to launch its sixth Scottish restaurant at Maxim, following the opening of its Edinburgh restaurant in November 2008.

Massimo has agreed a deal to operate an 8,726 sq ft restaurant at Maxim over two floors, with potential to serve around 150 sittings on the ground floor and a further conference/function venue on the first floor with capacity for 250 people. Maxim has agreed a 15-year lease at an initial rent of £173,940 per annum and the restaurant is expected to be open by autumn this year.

It is anticipated that the new restaurant will create more than 30 jobs for the £330 million Maxim development, Scotland's largest ever speculative business park, which is now nearing completion. The Massimo deal is the latest in a string of high profile lettings' announcements at the park which includes Baguette Express and Prime Time Nurseries.

The Massimo group has been operating in Scotland for 13 years and currently operates five restaurants across Scotland's central belt with a combined multi-million pound turnover. The restaurants offer high quality Italian dining with a strong contemporary theme - combining authentic and fresh ingredients with a constantly changing, seasonal menu.

Maxim offers an unprecedented opportunity for group Chief Executive, Massimo Lilli, to open a high quality restaurant initially geared to meet specific business needs.

He explains: "Maxim has the potential to create around 8,000 jobs and is set to become a vibrant commercial hub, ideally situated off the M8 between Glasgow and Edinburgh. We wanted to take advantage of this potential by creating a restaurant offering which meets business needs - which is top quality food delivered quickly and efficiently.

"Diners at our Maxim restaurant can order at the counter and view their meals as they are being prepared - and with fresh ingredients this takes a matter of minutes. Using a smart credit-card system, customers can simply swipe their card as they leave the restaurant and the bill will be automatically debited from their account, thus avoiding precious waiting time."

He added: "Massimo at Maxim will also be flexible enough to offer large scale functions to meet the development's burgeoning events and conference potential - as well as creating a premium evening offering to appeal to more leisure-focused diners from the growing Lanarkshire and east-Glasgow catchment area."

For Maxim, the deal represents another major investment opportunity which strengthens the park's commitment to offering a wide range of amenities that will be fully operational in advance of occupiers moving on site.

The Maxim office park is the UK's largest ‘live' office park development comprising 10 buildings, totalling 750,000 sq ft of space. The first three office buildings are now complete with the entire park being complete in March 2010 and offers a best-in-class office park environment offering, as well as Grade A office accommodation, a range of shops, a wine bar and restaurant as well as childcare and leisure facilities. Amenities include a PGA accredited putting facility which is supported by leading Scots golfer Alistair Forsyth.