A BOLTON law firm is to build a £7 million office and create up to 300 new jobs.

Asons will create a futuristic building as a new gateway to the town centre, on the site of the former Bolton College building in Clarence Street.

As well as office space, the luxury development will include a top-end restaurant, space for business networking and corporate events and a rooftop garden.

The news comes just a day after it was announced that the new owners of The Market Place, the Moorgarth Group, would build a nine-screen cinema and restaurants as part of £15 million of investment in the shopping centre.

Asons’ owners, brothers Imran and Kamran Akram, announced the ambitious project at their current Bark Street headquarters yesterday.

The new building will have the same “wow factor” as New York’s Times Square, according to the Akrams.

“We want to create a wow factor for people coming into the town,” said Kamran. “We could have expanded into another town or city, but we wanted to stay here because it has done really well for us and we feel part of the Bolton family.

“In addition, we have a good relationship with Bolton Council, the university, Bolton Hospice and the town’s schools.

“We wanted to show loyalty to the town.”

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The development will complete something of a fairytale rise for the Akram family.

Their father, Mohammed, now aged 59, moved to Bolton from Pakistan in 1972 to work in Wolfenden Mill.

They made their first home in Clarence Street, just yards from where the new building will stand.

It will include a “fishbowl” glass boardroom leading out on to a roof garden where Asons will hold company barbecues, said Kamran.

But the first sight motorists will see arriving in Bolton from the A666 is a huge screen at the side of the building similar to Times Square.

Plans also include a restaurant, along the lines of EastZEast in Manchester and an entrance area, which will double up as a venue for business networking and corporate events.

Bolton construction and design consultants Bradshaw Gass and Hope LLP will lead the project, which should be complete by 2015, and Asons want 70 per cent of the workforce to be sourced locally.

Asons’ rise has been meteoric in business terms. Imaran, aged 37, and Kamran started with a staff of just three at offices in Chorley New Road five years ago.

They moved an expanding staff of 90 to Bark Street two years ago, but they now employ 200 and occupy three floors of that building.

They have also set up a marketing arm of the business, which employs an additional 70 people.

The firm specialises entirely in personal injury claims.

“We have outgrown these offices because we are growing so fast,” said Kamran, aged 36.

“Last year, our turnover was £9 million and this year it will be £17 million. We have massive vision for the next five years, but we also have a 20-year business plan.”

Kamran said a £100 million contract from the Pakistan government was also in the offing for the firm.

He added: “When we moved into Bark Street two years ago, we were the first people to occupy it, but now it is full. Sometimes it takes someone to make the first move.”

Meanwhile, Asons is planning to open offices in London, New York, Dubai, Pakistan and Singapore by 2018.

Bolton Council leader Cliff Morris and Keith Davies, director of development and regeneration were also at yesterday’s launch.

Cllr Morris said: “Asons is currently the biggest employer in Bolton town centre and this is very exciting for us.

“In just two days we have had announcements which will change the face of Bolton town centre.”

Read more about the history of the Bolton Community College building in Clarence Street here: