Out of Town: Crown Business Park
Tim Heatley, co-founder of Manchester developer Capital & Centric, discusses Crown Business Park near Rochdale.
Give us a brief description of the development
Crown Business Park is big warehouse and industrial space, it has big views over the rolling south Lancashire Pennines, big power availability, and big development plots.
Then we’ve got the office park. The office park sits proudly on top of the hills of Rochdale and its designers made it super energy efficient and look really cool too. We’re proud to say that these buildings, with their high energy efficiency, are amongst the greenest around and a first of their kind in the area – in fact they’ve received a BREEAM Excellent Award for being so eco-friendly.
What state of development is the site currently in and which tenants are based there?
Over 120,000 sq ft of space has been built so far, it’s 18 acres so it can accommodate another 150,000 sq ft. All the access and service roads are completed with development plots ready to go. Most of the space has been sold or let already and tenants include British Gas, Business First, Wynsor Shoes, Document XL, Floors 2 Go.
What’s the most interesting feature about the development?
They were the first BREEAM Excellent warehouses in the North West and it was the North West’s only speculative business park to built during the recession and none have been started since.
What’s the history of the site and what first attracted you to it?
The derelict site was previously owned by Fortis Bank as the mortgagee in possession. As a result of the credit crunch, in 2009 Fortis was bailed out by the Benelux countries so they were keen to exit their distressed debt positions. We approached them with a proposal to acquire the land for around £3m. The location was attractive because of its prominence and access to the M60 motorway and being so close to Rochdale town centre.
Capital & Centric had never developed a business park before but they knew that the construction costs could be relatively low as a result of the recession and brownfield land was now inexpensive. At the same time they approached the European Regional Development Fund for some gap funding, offering to speculatively develop the land to create jobs and investment. ERDF agreed to invest £3.2m so long as the buildings were constructed to BREEAM Excellent standard.
Who owns the development and how is it being backed?
Once Fortis agreed to the sale and ERDF agreed to the funding, Capital & Centric sought a contractor as JV partner which is when Barnfield became involved. The development is owned equally by Capital & Centric and Barnfield Construction. The development was debt funded by the European Regional Development Fund and the Royal Bank of Scotland. This was unusual as construction on the infrastructure commenced during 2010 right in the depths of the recession.
