Morrison Construction, The HALO’s main contractor for this stage of the development, started work on the project in October 2019, with a 15-week pause on construction due to COVID-19, and will hand over the keys to the HALO team at the end of April.

The four-storey HEIC, phase one of the HALO Kilmarnock, will include an industry-leading digital, data and cyber training and learning facility within a digitally connected workspace, placing the HALO at the forefront of the “Fourth Industrial Revolution” which is digital.

The HALO Kilmarnock is a £63 million brownfield urban regeneration project on a 23-acre site, formerly the home of Johnnie Walker.

With a vision for a dynamic commercial, educational, cultural, leisure and lifestyle quarter where people can ‘Live, Work, Learn and Play’, the HALO will provide a sustainable community approach to a mixed-use development powered by electricity with a net zero carbon footprint.

Marie Macklin CBE, founder and executive chair of the HALO, said: “To watch this time lapse film of the HALO coming out of the ground is only surpassed by seeing the building for real, standing so proudly in the heart of Kilmarnock town centre. This is literally a dream come true.

“The HALO has been a vision 12 years in the making and I’m so excited to see what the future will bring for all the people who are set to benefit from this fabulous place.”

The HEIC’s state of the art, 110-desk, enterprise floor will be home to enterprising business entrepreneurs and a Barclays Eagle Lab.

Headline sponsor Scottish Power and gold partner Anderson Strathern will support business growth on the HALO’s #Rockme co-working and accelerator floor. This space will host a thriving community of collaborative technical innovation, with high-growth technology businesses collaborating and developing their technology with HALO’s blue-chip commercial partners and world-renowned academic partners.

In a UK first, the HALO’s Tomorrow’s World Globe is a unique virtual communication facility with weekly international conferencing being streamed into the HALO Enterprise Floor.