Investor swoops for Grade II listed city centre office building

Plans for a “significant investment” in a Grade II listed office building in Liverpool city centre have been announced by development company Glenbrook, which has acquired the property from MCR Property Group.

Located off Temple Street, No. 1. Temple Square is a 18,761 sq ft multi-let office building which is home to tenants such as Canter Levin Berg and Kirwans.

Forty per cent of the property is currently vacant.

The deal marks the first acquisition for the company since Chris Lloyd joined as investment director last month and follows on from Glenbrook’s £6.4m disposal of The Beat in Liverpool city centre earlier in the year.

Lloyd said: “Liverpool has and always will be an attractive investment location for Glenbrook. With such a high proportion of Liverpool’s office stock either let or bought for redevelopment to other uses, we see 1 Temple Square as providing a quality option for occupiers in the city centre.

“With the potential of a successful Commonwealth Games bid, the completion of Liverpool 2, and the GPU acquiring the whole of India Buildings, the city has exciting times ahead.

“Having successfully acquired the building off market, we are now planning significant investment in the building over the next couple of months with a view to relaunching the product to the market in September. We are looking at similar assets in both the office and industrial sectors, where we can add value through proactive tenant engagement and speculative refurbishment.”

Nick Lake, asset manager at MCR Property Group, said: “One Temple Square is a fantastic building in a great part of Liverpool that has improved no end over the past few years. We bought the property in early 2015, and felt it was the right time to sell as it suits us to focus on other opportunities.

“MCR Property Group has a multi-sector growth strategy. We have over 3,500 residential units in the pipeline and will continue to add to our 4 million sq. ft. of commercial space”.

Glenbrook and MCR Property Group represented themselves.