A PROPERTY tycoon today flagged up a series of multi-million pound projects designed to spark a business boom in Monks Cross.

Peter Smith, surveyor and developer has launched a massive office building campaign with the unveiling of his latest vision there of a high tech £5 million 32,000 sq ft two storey office complex to be named Triune Court, on which work has already begun.

Mr Smith and partner, fellow surveyor Hugh Ball, have dramatically changed the Monks Cross skyline since the early 1990s when they joined forces with Bass in acquiring land at what was Pigeoncote Farm and later re-dubbed Monks Cross.

Now they plan to meet the huge and growing demand for modern office space in the city.

He said: "When Triune Court is finished we shall submit plans for another 30,000 sq ft of offices on 14.5 acres of employment land we own to the north of the shopping park, then another, and keep going..."

The two men built the Sainsburys structure, sold the neighbouring shopping site partly to Asda and partly to Black Country millionaires, the Richardson twins - land eventually sold on to become the Monks Cross shopping centre.

Mr Smith and Mr Ball also built Arabesque House, headquarters of Business Link North Yorkshire; and more recently developed the £9million 35,000 sq ft TK Maxx retail development alongside Sainsburys.

The steel frame for Triune Court has already been built next door to Arabesque House, whose courtyard style is echoed in the design. The venture, due to be completed in July, is expected to generate more than £460,000 a year in rents plus scores of jobs.

It will have its own lake in the two acre grounds, dramatic statue and pioneering technology. Marketing has now begun in earnest by joint agents DTZ Debenham Tie Leung of York and FPD Savills.

Like Arabesque House the two storey offices will have a statue as its focal feature. Keith McCarter who created the double-helixed metal "arabesque" there, has been commissioned to sculpt in granite three figures from which the Roman "triune" takes its name.

A big selling point is that its four units, two of 5,600 sq ft and two of 10,600 sq ft will have fibreoptic cabling, heating as well as a "comfort cooling system" ideal for maintaining low temperatures in computer control rooms plus parking for 100 cars.

Richard Flanagan, associate director of DTZ, York, said: "There is a huge and growing imbalance of supply and demand in York. These offices will be let quickly, whether as one major building for a huge company or even sub-divided on a floor-by-floor basis.

"Offices speculatively built in Holgate Road, York, were pre-let during construction and while City of York Council has put the local plan review on hold while it seeks out potential land for release, the pressure for new offices is growing - from expanding York firms, from inward investors and from Science City York which needs elbow room."