Derby ready for Grade A office catalyst, says inward investment chief
Derby’s inward investment priorities have changed as it prepares for MIPIM, according to the boss of the body tasked with promoting and attracting investors into the city and wider county.
Speaking to TheBusinessDesk.com, John Forkin, the managing director of Marketing Derby said that the days of promoting 1m sq ft of new offices in the city changed the day the of crash.
“We’re never going back to those days of 20-year pre-lets,” Forkin said, “but what has happened in Derby city centre is the space that these planned offices were going to be taking up is being used by developers promoting residential schemes. We’re now seeing plans for hundreds of apartments on space that was never going to be taken up by offices following the recession, and we welcome this.”
Last week, Derby City Council announced it is set to launch a new model for supplying larger city centre office space with a pilot scheme at the £6.4m 6 Bold Lane development in the city.
The new model for supplying larger office spaces in the city centre is a key regeneration aim of the Council in 2018 and follows from the Connect Derby model which provides managed office spaces for start-up businesses.
The Council says that soft market testing has shown that there is a demand for larger office spaces between 5,000 sq ft to 10,000 sq ft in the city centre which the private sector has been unable to provide so far.
Forkin added: “We’re aware there is a shortage of Grade A office supply, and we’re hoping that the Council’s initiative will act as a catalyst for developers to come to the city and start building speculative office schemes again – but we know they won’t be as expansive as outlined in the Masterplan we put together.”
Derby will be holding its annual Embassy at MIPIM this year on Wednesday 14 March at 8.30am until 10am at th Eden Hotel. TheBusinessDesk will be attending – if you’re interested in meeting us to talk about initiatives in the city, please do get in touch.
