St Modwen wants second chance at Daresbury SIC

DEVELOPER St Modwen has said it interested in the tender to develop the Daresbury Science and Innovation Campus, despite mothballing a project at the centre earlier this year.

The tender is for a private sector partner in a joint venture to develop the campus over the next 30 years. The investor would develop up to 1 million sq ft of space at the campus, to be used for trade, research and innovation purposes.

That 1 million sq ft includes the nine acre site that St Modwen had previously planned for a rolling £25m development programme of buildings.

But those plans were axed earlier this year when the developer admitted it had been forced to mothball a grow-on building that was to provide an additional 37,000 sq ft of office and laboratory space. Development of that building has since been taken over by the NWDA, which has a £9m budget for the scheme.

Michelle Taylor, North West regional director for St Modwen, told TheBusinessDesk: “Daresbury was a genuine casualty of the recession. It’s a total shame, the business case for Daresbury was totally proven.

“I was totally satisfied the demand was there but the market was changing and at the point we needed to commit it became unviable and not fundable. The banks wouldn’t fund a building full of new start-up businesses and the yields in the market place meant it was not viable.”

She added: “If it had been built a year before it would be finished and probably full now.”

Ms Taylor said St Modwen was interested in revisiting the site. She said: “We do believe in the potential at Daresbury.

“We are interested in applying and will look at that as a completely new project.”

The chosen partner would also provide facilities management and other services to the Daresbury campus as well as potentially realise commercial services and investment opportunities for campus companies.

“We only buy property if it’s got development potential but we also tend to buy things with rental income,” said Ms Taylor.

St Modwen has an annual rental income of £33m, with £8.4m of that from the North West, where its strengths lie in district shopping centres and managed estates.

MsTaylor added many developers in the market are not true regeneration specialists.

“I’d say that greenfield with planning is development, brownfield with planning to knock something down is redevelopment. There’s been a lot of that, but to me that’s not regeneration, although it’s badged that way a lot.

“To me regeneration is where there has been a social and structural breakdown. We don’t develop city centres; we go to places most in need.”