Posted on January 12, 2011 by John Cronin
Plans for a multi-million pound refurbishment in Manchester to create offices within a listed building have been submitted and are now awaiting approval.
Owners of the Grade II Listed Sevendale House in Dale Street (pictured – source), Philip J Davies Holdings, have submitted plans to convert the significant building into Grade A offices.
Sevendale House is a flagship building located in the resurgent Northern Quarter of Manchester city centre, an area that is popular with companies in the design and new media industries. The conversion programme, if approved, will be one of the largest office conversion projects seen in Manchester for several years.
The 6-storey building will offer in excess of 61,000 sq ft of floor space with flexible floor plates of approximately 14,000 sq ft. Currently 4 of the 5 upper storeys are empty and the basement and ground floors are currently occupied by retail and leisure operators. The developers are proposing a sympathetic restoration of the building, including a re-introduction of an original lightwell that will provide the office space with natural daylight. Expected rental prices for the speculative redevelopment are not yet available.
The developers have been waiting for several long-term leases to expire before embarking on their £6m refurbishment plans. Mark Davies, director of Philip J Davies said: “This is our first opportunity in 25 years to carry out the long-awaited renaissance of this significant building, which will also enhance the attractions of the Northern Quarter to office users requiring good quality space in a great location, whether it is creative industries that gravitate to this area or professional service companies.”
Architects for the redevelopment are Stephenson Bell. A decision from the planning committee is expected in March and the project has a target completion date of spring 2012.
Posted in Manchester |
Tagged Listed Buildings, Renovations, Speculative Developments |
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Posted on January 11, 2011 by John Cronin
A large-scale development in Thames Valley has been acquired by a US private equity investor.
US investors Benson Elliot Capital Management and UK property developers Stanhope plc have acquired a majority interest in the Station Hill redevelopment in Reading, Berkshire. The redevelopment of the site next to Reading station was previously controlled by John Madejski, the property and publishing entrepreneur, via his Sackville Properties company. It is believed that the scheme had breached banking covenants and has been sold for less than the outstanding debt value.
Station Hill (pictured) is one of the largest commercial developments in the UK with an expected development cost in excess of £400m. The 1.72m sq ft, mixed-use speculative development will include over 860,000 sq ft of office floor space along with retail units, residential accommodation and leisure areas.
Construction for the 5.1acre site has been timetabled to commence in 2011 with a target, first phase completion date of 2014.
The development, designed by architects Scott BrownRigg and Chapman Taylor, will include 3 multi-storey office buildings, the tallest standing at 26 floors. The smallest office block will offer approximately 200,000 sq ft of floor space and the largest offering 320,000 sq ft. Floor plates will range in size from 8,000 sq ft up to 14,000 sq ft. The building design is expected to result in a BREEAM rating of ‘Excellent’. The design of the scheme has not been without criticism, with CABE expressing concerns over the height of the tall office towers.
Full planning documentation is available on the Reading Borough Council website.
Posted in Berkshire |
Tagged Speculative Developments, Transactions |
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Posted on January 10, 2011 by John Cronin
One of the largest business parks in the UK is set to be sold for nearly £500m to a private equity group.
Blackstone, the private equity investors are aiming to sign off a deal worth £480m to purchase the 1.8m sq ft Chiswick Park office campus. Chiswick Park is currently owned by several investors of a trust that holds the property and it is believed that more than 50% of the trusts investors are now ready to sell. Although the trust expired in December 2009, a sale was not actively sought during 2010 due to the difficult commercial property market.
Chiswick Park (pictured) is located on a former 33acre, bus depot site on the border of west London suburbs Chiswick and Acton. The business park, constructed by Stanhope plc, will consist of 12 office buildings ranging in size from 81,000 sq ft up to 332,000 sq ft. Construction began in 1999 and 3 office blocks are still be constructed.
Occupancy rates are high and with recent lettings including 140,000 sq ft to QVC and 134,000 sq ft to Tullow Oil, only 74,000 sq ft of vacant floor space is available. The park also includes 82,000 sq ft of serviced office space and a range of cafes, a fitness centre and events/exhibitions space.
Stanhope have commenced construction on a new office and studios for TV shopping company QVC at building 8, with completion to shell and core in April. QVC signed a pre-let agreement in August, 2010. Tullow Oil signed a 15 year lease for floor space in building 9. Rental prices have not been disclosed.
Architects for the speculative development are Rogers Stirk Harbour & Partners who have designed large floor plate buildings that allow for maximum use of natural daylight. The scheme has won several national awards for both the quality and design of the offices and also for the extensive landscaping of the office campus. The buildings have BREEAM ratings of ‘Excellent’.
Marketing agents for the development include Savills and Jones Lang LaSalle
Posted in London |
Tagged Business Parks, Serviced Offices, Speculative Developments, Transactions |
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Posted on January 7, 2011 by John Cronin
A second tenant has agreed to lease floor space in the largest office building in Reading.
It has been announced that software company Pegasystems has signed a 10 year lease for 22,590 sq ft of floor space on the third floor of One Reading Central, the largest office building in Reading. The company has agreed to pay a rent of £30/ sq ft and will occupy the offices from April. The other tenant occupying the building is Yell, the telephone directories business who entered into a pre-let agreement and subsequently signed a 20 year lease.
One Reading Central (pictured) is a speculative development that was completed in February, 2010. The 10 storey building offers a total of 218,800 sq ft of floor space with typical floor plates of approximately 22,500 sq ft. Floors 4 – 10 are let to Yell who relocated to the building from 4 smaller offices in October, 2010.
Vacant floor space totalling 41,560 sq ft remains available on the first and second floors of the building. The offices are Grade A rated and the building has a BREEAM rating of ‘Excellent’.
Dan Ryan, VP Real Estate and Facilities at Pegasystems, commented: “We considered a number of options in the Thames Valley market and One Reading Central offered us good design flexibility due to its large floor plates.”
One Reading Central is a £90m joint venture between Kier Property and Invista Real Estate and is the first of a proposed development of 3 office buildings that will offer in excess of 670,000 sq ft of floor space.
Marketing agents for the development include DTZ and Hanover Green.
Posted in Berkshire |
Tagged Rental Prices, Speculative Developments |
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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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