Spades in the ground at £13.7m Artis Park development
Joint venture partners Maple Grove Developments, Kier Property, and Yorvale have commenced work on the first phase of their Artis Park scheme in Winsford, Cheshire.
HP Construction will start delivering the £13.7m industrial and trade counter development, which is located on Road One.
When complete, the scheme will comprise 123,995 sq ft of floorspace across 13 high-quality, flexible units ranging in size from 3,450-26,620sq ft. The units are available on a leasehold or freehold basis.
The joint venture partners recently secured development funding from the North West Evergreen Fund, which is managed by CBRE’s investment advisory team, part of CBRE Capital Advisors.
The fund provides debt finance for development projects which support the regional economy through the delivery of employment space within Greater Manchester, Cheshire and Lancashire.
Nik Puttnam, senior development manager at Maple Grove Developments, said: “We have made excellent progress at Winsford and this timely start on site will cater for the pent-up demand we are seeing in Cheshire for small box and trade counter facilities.
“The scheme will be delivered over two phases – phase one due is to be finished by quarter two 2020, with the second phase scheduled for completion by the end of next year.”
Henry Martin, development manager at Kier Property, said: “We are delighted to officially start the construction of Artis Park, we have worked hard with our professional team over the last 12 months to design a scheme which provides flexible high quality industrial accommodation and addresses the lack of smaller modern units in the area.
“The scheme has attracted strong interest from both local and national occupiers and we look to build upon on this progress through the construction phase.”
Herbin Duffield, associate director, CBRE Capital Advisors, added: “This is exactly the type of project that the Evergreen Fund strives to support, facilitating the development of important industrial space that will create jobs in a market where speculative development finance is otherwise scarce.”
Jason Print, partner at Gerald Eve, joint agents for the scheme with Legat Owen, said: “Three of the 13 units are either let or under offer before work has even started on site, which demonstrates the appetite we are currently seeing for high quality units in a desirable industrial location.
“The estate is situated within a two-hour drive of 31% of the population, which is one of the main reasons why logistics firms such as Tiger Trailers, Coveris and Iveco have chosen to have a base here. We are looking forward to announcing the lettings in the coming weeks.”
Screwfix has pre-let two of the units on the scheme and a further unit is in legals with a national trade counter operator.
With the start of construction activity on site, the JV anticipates further enquiries and lettings to progress as potential occupiers can now see the development progressing.
Artis Park is located 17 miles from Chester, 28 miles from Manchester and 30 miles from Liverpool. The M6 motorway is six miles to the East, giving good access to all parts of the UK.
Winsford Industrial Estate is the UK’s first Green Business Park and has benefited from significant environmental improvements. Winsford was also the first estate in the UK to become a Business Improvement District.
