Posted on January 6, 2011 by John Cronin
A landmark office block in Sheffield city centre has been sold in a multi-million pound transaction.
1 St Paul’s Place (pictured) has been purchased by investment group Canada Life for £23.96m. The previous owner was fund manager Standard Life Investments.
The 7-storey building offers in excess of 88,000 sq ft of floor space with the ground floor used as retail units. The above-ground office floors are fully let to law firm DLA Piper with Barclays and RBS subletting space on the first and second floors. Rental prices for the office space are estimated to be £15 / sq ft whilst the retail space is marketed at £18.50 / sq ft.
The Grade A rated office block was constructed in 2005 and is part of a mixed-use scheme that includes offices, residential and retail premises. The adjacent 2 St Paul’s Place is an office block that was completed in 2009 and is now occupied by the Department for Schools, Children and Families (DSCF). The DSCF agreed to a 250-year leasehold interest at a one-off cost of £25.99m and spent £4.8m on the office fit-out. New office furniture cost in excess of £654,000. The figures have been made available in response to a Freedom of Information Act request.
3 St Paul’s Place will be the next office building within the scheme and will offer 83,891 sq ft of floor space when complete. This speculative build is dependent upon an element of European regional development funding and indicative demand from potential tenants. Developers behind the project are CTP St James Ltd.
James Lawlor, senior surveyor, DTZ Leeds, said: “We are delighted to have advised Canada Life on this acquisition. The quality of the location, property, tenant line-up and surrounding public realm sets this asset apart from the rest of the Sheffield office market.”
Posted in South Yorkshire |
Tagged Public Sector, Rental Prices, Transactions |
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Posted on January 5, 2011 by John Cronin
Plans have been submitted for a major refurbishment of a large office tower in the City of London.
Plans were submitted in December for a complete renovation of the One Angel Court (pictured) site in Throgmorton Street and Copthall Street in the City. The developers are NG Properties who have applied for consent to renovate the building and to also increase the available floor space from 392,645 sq ft to 471,706 sq ft. Along with increased office space the redevelopment is to include additional retail space within Angel Court itself.
The octagonal building is one of the older office towers in the City having been constructed in the mid 1970s. The proposal is to fully rebuild the building by stripping it back to the core shell before being re-clad in floor to ceiling glazing. The construction works require Listed building consent for minor modifications to the Grade II listed 41 Lothbury building and some additional demolition works are required to the existing structure.
The refit will see Grade A office space of a higher specification than what is currently on offer. Expected rental prices are not yet available. Currently, available floor space within the building is being marketed at around £25 / sq ft. Rates are in excess of £17 / sq ft and a service charge is currently capped at £10 / sq ft.
It is expected that the renovations to the building and the introduction of energy saving measures will result in a revised BREAAM rating of ‘Excellent’. Architects for the development are Fletcher Priest Architects.
A decision from the planning authority is expected in early March.
Posted in London |
Tagged Planning, Renovations, Rental Prices, Serviced Offices |
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Posted on January 4, 2011 by John Cronin
Funding and construction contracts have been agreed for a multi-million pound office development at a large regeneration scheme in Glasgow.
The Clyde Gateway Urban Regeneration Company (URC) has announced that funding amounting to £10m has been secured from the investment arm of Aviva, enabling the construction of a new office complex to start later this month. The new offices (pictured), amounting to approximately 64,500 sq ft of floor space are to built on a brownfield site in Bridgeton in the east end of Glasgow. The construction contract has been awarded to Dawn Group Ltd a Scottish property development company.
Glasgow City Council has already agreed to a 20-year lease for the building and will use the building, to be known as Eastgate, as offices for Glasgow Community Safety Services (GCSS). GCSS will relocate about 500 staff to the new building who are currently located in various offices across the city. GCSS estimates an annual rental saving of £65,000.
The Clyde Gateway is a long term urban regeneration plan aiming to create a target of 21,000 jobs over the next two decades. The area covers a large part of the east end of Glasgow, including Bridgeton, Dalmarnock and Parkhead and URC plan to redevelop the area with a mix of homes, offices and commercial property of various sizes.
A recent scheme includes the redevelopment of former housing offices into 12 serviced offices. The Red Tree Business Suites complex is expected to be ready for occupation in May, 2011 and will offer 12 office suites starting in size from 200 sq ft that are being targeted at start-up businesses.
The Eastgate scheme will offer Grade A office space within a 4-storey building. A BREEAM rating of ‘Excellent’ is expected to be achieved. The target completion date is February 2012 with the new tenants using the building from April 2012.
Posted in Glasgow |
Tagged Clyde Gateway, Public Sector, Renovations, Serviced Offices |
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Posted on December 24, 2010 by John Cronin
A government appointed planning inspector has been appointed to rule on the future of a controversial office scheme in Windsor, Berkshire.
Property developers St Congar have had plans for a controversial, speculative office development on the site of the former Ranks Hovis McDougall building rejected by the Royal Borough planning committee. The Maidenhead Advertiser reports that the Windsor and District Chamber of Commerce (website) is supportive of the proposed development, saying that the scheme will create additional business in the area. Following a subsequent appeal against the decision, a 2 day hearing took place this week at Windsor Racecourse.
St Congar plan to build 5 individual office blocks each varying in height between 1 to 5 storeys (pictured). In total the office blocks will offer approximately 274,000 sq ft of flexible, Grade A rated floor space.
Referred to as W1 Windsor, the office complex would be located on a 4.6acre site on Alma Road and is being marketed as potential headquarter office accommodation. The existing building on the site, Imperial House, would be demolished to make way for the new office blocks.
St Congar purchased the existing building from The Crown Estate for £15m in a joint venture with Europa Capital in February 2008. Imperial House was constructed in 1983 as the headquarters for Rank Hovis McDougall and comprises approximately 47,000 sq ft of office space.
Many local residents have campaigned against the development claiming the new buildings would dominate views from nearby roads. The Royal Windsor forum has been used to by local residents to track the latest planning appeal and public consultation.
The appointed planning inspector is expected to announce a final decision early in 2011.
Posted in Berkshire |
Tagged Demolitions, Planning, Speculative Developments |
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Posted on December 23, 2010 by John Cronin
Accountancy firm KPMG is considering constructing a new office in Leeds on a site that has seen various schemes come and go in recent years.
Having agreed a 9 month exclusivity period with Leeds City Council, KPMG are now exploring the possibility of having a new office building built at Criterion Place in the city centre. Their current regional headquarter offices are located on nearby Neville Street and house 750 staff. The lease on this building expires in 2015.
Criterion Place is a brownfield site and is currently a surface level car park. The land, the former site of the old Queens Hall building, has been previously earmarked for other residential and commercial projects but none have come to fruition. Sir Norman Foster designed a multi-storey office block for Royal London Insurance back in 1995 but construction of the building never went ahead. There has however been some development on the site as a 6-storey office building was built for BT several years ago.
In 2004 a large residential-led, mixed use scheme including new office space was proposed consisting of two glass towers that had earned the nickname of ‘Kissing Towers’ (pictured). This scheme, proposed by Simons Estates was cancelled in agreement with the council in 2008.
KPMG have stated that their plans for Criterion Place are at an early stage. If the scheme goes ahead, 3 office buildings will built on the site with KPMG taking one of them. Iain Moffatt, KPMG’s Leeds office senior partner, said: “In the face of a challenging property development market we are pursuing an innovative route to meeting our future office requirements by taking on an active role of development partner.”
Leeds based property agents are hoping that the proposals will give a boost to the local office market. Alex Munro, head of commercial agency development at Knight Frank commented: “Confidence is key to progress in the office market, where companies who have survived the worst, and have conserved their assets, are now looking towards the future.”
Posted in West Yorkshire |
Tagged Foster and Partners, Skyscrapers, Speculative Developments |
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Posted on December 22, 2010 by John Cronin
A property investment and development company has announced multiple lettings at a new serviced office centre in Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire.
Northern Trust has secured 7 new tenants for its new Genesis Centre complex (pictured) at the North Staffs Business Park.
The new lettings range in size from 2 desk suites up to a 30 desk lease. The range of lettings include a recruitment company and a health company both signing 3 year tenancy agreements on 3 desk suites. The largest tenancy has been taken by mobile phone company Phones 4U who have signed for 3 suites totaling 30 desks over 2,226 sq ft of floor space.
The modern, serviced offices centre was opened in September, 2009 and offers 93 individual office suites, amounting to a 415 desk capacity over 3 floors. Suites range in size from 2 desks at 177 sq ft up to 25 desks at 1,838 sq ft. The building also offers break-out areas, meeting rooms and conference facilities. The 33,000 sq ft building has a BREEAM rating of ‘Excellent’. The serviced office services include pay-as-you-go typing, colour copying / printing and mail services.
Owner of the offices, Northern Trust, was established in 1962 and is now one of the UK’s largest privately owned property investment, development and land regeneration companies. The company has an existing property portfolio in excess of 8million sq ft of industrial and office park floor space. The speculative Genesis Centre development is in partnership with Stoke-on-Trent City Council, North Staffordshire Regeneration Partnership and Advantage West Midlands and is part of the wider the Chatterley Valley masterplan.
Rental prices have not been disclosed. Marketing agents include Whittle Jones and Louis Taylor.
Posted in Staffordshire |
Tagged Business Parks, Serviced Offices |
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Posted on December 21, 2010 by John Cronin
A planning consultancy has suggested that the current Coronation Street studios in Manchester could be sold for redevelopment after ITV relocate to MediaCity.
The suggestion follows the announcement that ITV are to relocate the famous Coronation Street studios from the existing Quay Street site to the huge Peel Media owned MediaCity scheme at Salford Quays.
It is estimated that the current studios and offices owned by ITV will be left vacant by 2013 and a subsequent sale of the site could raise up to £60m.
Manchester based consultancy HOW Planning believes the Quay Street site is suitable for a redevelopment approaching 1 million sq ft. Senior Partner at HOW, Gary Halman suggests that the large site could support a mixed-use development of residential accommodation and speculative office space. He says: “those parts of the site that front Quay Street will be close to the high-density office developments of the city centre, which might make them more appropriate for new office buildings. Quay Street is more connected to the city’s new office core at Spinningfields”.
ITV was granted planning permission in 2007 to convert the Bonded Warehouse building (pictured) into offices and had planned to use the substantial premises as office accommodation for more than 800 staff. A proposed £18m conversion of the building would have created 330,000 sq ft of both office and studio floor space. At the time the BBC also considered a move to the building, though the organisation is now also relocating several production teams to MediaCity.
The regional ITV centre is relocating to the Orange building within MediaCity in a move that is being project managed by Mace Group. Mace are responsible for the offices fit-out within the building that are to be used by production, management and administrative staff. The relocation is expected to be completed by the end of 2012.
Posted in Manchester |
Tagged Media City, Peel Group, Salford Quays, Speculative Developments, Spinningfields |
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Posted on December 20, 2010 by Nell Frizzell
Episode Thirteen. Also known as Episode Surely One Of Them Must Win By Now. Or Episode Can’t This Moron Just Ring Reed Like The Rest Of Us? Or Episode If He Doesn’t Hire Someone Soon I’m Staging An Intervention. That’s right; it’s the final. And as the credits roll their last, and the foghorn narrator thunders his final humourless intro, it’s time to look back over all the biznez people too stupid and inept to fool a dimple-chinned geriatric into employment.
Bye bye Sandeesh, see yer later Hollyoaks Jamie, astaluego Bambi Liz, so long Mel, do one Naan-faced Stuart and farewell Sulky Laura; it’s been a pleasure. It’s been real.
As we rush headlong in to the most postponed first day since Prince Charles tried on his mother’s headwear, only milk-haired Stella and vertical-haired Chris remain in the fight to become Lord Sugar’s apprentice. Seeing as no-one else has bothered all season, perhaps now is the time for someone to address what an apprentice actually is. According to this Oxford illustrated dictionary sitting beside me (that’s right – I’m writing this from the 1980s, where we still have to use ‘books’ for information) an apprentice is a ‘Learner of a craft, bound to serve, and entitled to instruction from, his employer for a specified time.’ Not a single mention of sausage-flavoured crisps, sandy-knickered bikini shoots or public humiliation. Those lexicographers are idiots.
Undeterred, Chris runs to answer the phone at 6am to receive these, his final pride-stripping, esteem-quashing, CV-blighting orders. It must be pretty empty rattling around that house on their own. I wonder if they had an Amstrad slumber party last night, playing first generation, single-player, 1D doss computer games on the tank-sized Amstrentertainment system hidden in the basement. Or maybe they just painted each others’ nails and played with their mini Sugardolls.
Once the two milky bar kids have assembled at The Langham, Mini Mod Sugar turns up in his batmobile to stand in front of twelve square feet of false marble and fart instructions out of his grizzled mouth.
“Your task is to invent a brand new premium alcoholic drink,” yaps Sugatron. “And I think you’re gonna need some assistance,” he nasals. Cue awkward walk in of all the ex-canditates (well, all the candidates who haven’t learned the tough love lesson of the editing suite). So, it’s up to Stella and Chris to pick their teams for the final task. Yikes, it’s like the worst PE lesson ever! Paloma, of course, is the last to be picked. But where’s Baggs?!? Sitting in a bush outside Margaret Mountford’s house armed with a can of whiskers and a hacksaw, I’ll be bound.
Save for Handsy Marine Chris and Bambi Eyed Liz, the teams basically fall in to gender groups; Stella leads the women, Chris the men. Well, the men and a human orange apple pie (love you Alex).
For Stella’s team, Joanna wants a heritage drink. Which, apparently means whisky. Presumably it’s the heritage of groupie-rogering, fume-puking, guitar-plucking leather-clad alcoholics that she thinks will sell. Stella likes the idea of blue bourbon. Joanna likes ‘a twist of lime’. Hey gals, why not just add a shot of cold puke and be done with it?
Over on Chris’s team, talk turns to spiced rum. Perhaps rum cubed. Rum three times? Why not have a little boy whispering “redrumredrumredrum” in your marketing? It’d be a knockout! Meanwhile, the girls go for urbon bourbon with a touch of honey and spice. I guess bin gin and frisky whisky didn’t make the grade. Shame.
Chris’ alcoholic cuboid is apparently going to include white rum, pomegranate and aromatic bitters and will be called Prism. “Like a pyramid is like a prism….?”
So, the drinks done (or not, in Stella’s case) it’s time to think about advertising. The whisky mists are advised against showing shots. Frankly, with competitors like this I’d go for full vaccines.
The boys, on the other hand, are warned off sexualised adverts. So, no licking lips, no boozy dates, and absolutely no close ups of rohypnol.
So, with the product in place and the adverts filmed it’s time to plan that all-important presentation. “It’s the balance of making sure there’s emotion in there. But equally not being something I’m not” drawls Christopher the Monotonbot.
The presentation ceremony is quite possibly the worst I’ve ever seen; the bottle of Prism is passed around like an enormous alcoholic metronome as dancing girls buck and jolt to ear-wrenching 90s pop dance. We then move on to a truly dreadful advert. Prism apparently ‘reflects every side of you’. So be careful not to bend over in the shower. The bottle is so dangerous it might as well be called The Pomgrenade.
On to Stella. “The proposition is simple: it’s the new way of drinking bourbon,” says Stella. Instead of drinking it up your arse, or down your legs, like we usually do.
So, hungover (and possibly blind, if that load of moonshine is anything to go by) it’s time to head to the boardroom for the last time. Marine Chris stands behind his female team, meekly covering his bollocks like a footballer in a penalty shootout.
Eagle-nosed Nick tells Lord Sugardrop that Monotone Chris may be “no Richard Burton, but he’s come a long way.” Joanna, who has had her makeup put on by a particularly ham-fisted transvestite, tells Alanstrad that Stella is ‘the girl for the job’.
Which must surely mean that it’s like for Alan’s Final Thought. It all comes down to experience. Does he want young blood or old hacks? Does he want a green shoot or a thick trunk? Does he want a ‘revered theological scholar’ from the upper crust or a banker from Europe’s largest council estate?
After much dithering (during which I assume Lord Sugar is desperately trying to remember why he came in here and what he was looking for while making involuntary scissor movements with his fingers) the human tortoise comes to a decision. Stella will be his apprentice. And the search is over.
Thank god. Or Godstrad as he shall henceforth be known.
Posted in Misc |
Tagged Apprentice Blog |
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Posted on December 20, 2010 by John Cronin
Plans for a new, multi-million pound council office building in Rochdale moved a step closer after planning permission was granted at the last committee meeting.
Rochdale Council intends to construct a £50m civic centre (pictured) that will offer office accommodation for 2,000 council workers, a public library and new restaurant and cafe floor space. A final decision from the Regulatory Committee is expected to be a formality. The new building is earmarked for an area of empty land next to the River Roch that was previously used as a car park. The proposed building will offer approximately 181,000 sq ft of floor space in a 7-storey scheme of which 166,000 sq ft is designated for office space.
As seen by several other county councils, Rochdale Council is suggesting that the consolidation of separate offices in to a single, larger office building will be cost effective in the longer term. Once the new building is complete the main, existing civic office building – known locally as the Black Box (pictured) – will be demolished to make way for a speculative retail scheme.
The proposed civic office development follows on from the 2007 Rochdale Riverside Masterplan that proposed 5 new buildings that would offer either significant office space or residential accommodation.
Architects for the new building Faulkner Browns have designed a building that they expect to achieve a BREEAM rating of ‘Excellent’ as a minimum and with the possibility of achieving a rating of ‘Outstanding’ making the project one of the most environmentally friendly office buildings in the UK.
Despite the council not receiving any formal letters of objection, some local residents are not in favour of the scheme. One resident told the Manchester Evening News: “Another council office block? In a recession? Mad. Utterly mad.”
Robert McAlpine were chosen as the preferred construction company in May, 2010.
Posted in Manchester |
Tagged Demolitions, Public Sector |
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Posted on December 17, 2010 by John Cronin
Brighton and Hove City Council has received independent backing in a case against a local property company.
The council had served an enforcement notice on Baron Homes, instructing the company to convert a property back to serviced offices.
Baron Homes had converted the Grade II listed property at 8 Pavilion Parade (pictured) from offices to 7 residential apartments without having the necessary planning permission. After subsequently applying for retrospective permission, Baron Homes were turned down because it could not be shown that the existing office space had become redundant. The developers appealed against that decision and although this was also rejected the building was not converted back to offices.
An enforcement notice issued in March, 2010 was also appealed against and dismissed. An investigation by the planning inspector, Graham Self, has backed the action taken by the council and now Baron Homes are converting the building back to offices.
Councillor Lynda Hyde, chairman of the city’s planning committee, said: “It was never proved that office space is redundant in the area. Our policies are there to protect the long-term need for office space that will generate employment in the future. Indeed, the inspector noted that this is a prime location and there are other office premises in the same terrace”.
Several of the 4-storey buildings adjoining the property in question have been converted into office space, typically offering semi-serviced office suites with floor spaces of around 280 sq ft. Quoted rental prices inclusive of rates and service charges are £30 / sq ft per annum.
Posted in East Sussex |
Tagged Planning, Serviced Offices |
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