Property news: CEG; Promenade Estates; Calderpeel Architects & more

INTEGREATED marketing communications agency McCann Manchester has been signed up to take space at 196 Deansgate, following the £2.3m refurbishment of the building.

The reception area, as well as the first and second floor have been revamped, with CEG completing the deal to bring McCann to the development.

McCann, which also has offices in London, will relocate from City Tower to take 4,650sq ft on the fourth floor on a five-year lease and the premises will become the city centre hub for the agency’s digital marketing offering, McCann Connected.

McCann will join existing tenants including Citypress, Pharmacist Support Animus and outdoor retailer Blacks.

JLL advised McCann Manchester.

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DEVELOPER Promenade Estates’ luxury development in Wirral is now fully sold, just seven months after its completion.

The Prom @ New Brighton is the first development of its kind in New Brighton, and interest from buyers from across the country has demonstrated the need for luxury apartments in the sought-after areas of the Wirral Peninsula.

The 24 units, ranging from one to four bedrooms, benefit from fully glazed ‘winter balconies’ allowing residents to enjoy the sea views all year long, master bedrooms with en-suite bathrooms, AEG appliances in the kitchens and private parking with CCTV.

With more than 75% of the apartments sold off plan, owning one of the luxury seaside homes has proved popular due to New Brighton’s thriving leisure and retail offering.

The apartments are the final phase of the developer’s £60m masterplan of the seaside resort, following the successful regeneration of Marine Point which features restaurants, a cinema, retail units, a hotel and a children’s play centre.
 
The resort is back in its place as a significant part of the Wirral tourism economy, which is valued at almost £328m.

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CHESHIRE-based Calderpeel Architects has been named as one of the winners of an international competition to design new beach huts in Eastbourne, East Sussex.
 
The firm was selected alongside three other practices and a group of local students to create five new iconic beach hut designs, beating off competition from more than 50 other architecture firms across the globe.

Calderpeel’s winning design, titled Eastbourne Re-bourne, will see the local community actively involved in the hut’s construction as it will be built with recycled plastic bottles collected as part of the town’s annual beach clear up.

The public will then be invited to write a message to go inside the bottles so that the transparent walls create a time-capsule for the town. It’s hoped the five beach huts, to be located east of Eastbourne pier in the town’s Devonshire ward, will become landmark symbols and create new visitor attractions.
 
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WHR Property Consultancy has secured a sole occupier for Fabrica, the 24,400sq ft office building in Manchester city centre.

Fashion retailer, Glamorous has taken a new full repairing and insuring lease of the entire building. Glamorous prides itself on offering, unique and stylish clothing for the fashion focused woman.

The Grade A office building, which is situated on Pollard Street in New Islington was speculatively developed in 2012 by Royal London Asset Management and is part of a mixed use scheme involving an IBIS Hotel and Costa Coffee outlet. The letting agents were quoting a rental of £16.50sq ft net.

Mark Cooke of WHR said: “Glamorous was relocating its business from its previous premises on Ducie Street in Manchester to this striking new landmark building.  

“New Islington used to be the industrial heartbeat of Manchester’s ‘rag trade’ so it is fitting that a successful clothing retailer has now taken it as its new headquarters.  This deal is testament to the expanding city centre office market.”

Canning O’Neill and Daniel Harris & Co were joint letting agent.

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CARLISLE Golf Centre has teed up a move to larger premises with funding support from Clydesdale Bank.  

The new 3,000sq ft site in Kingstown, scheduled to open at Easter, will feature a 12-bay driving range as well as the core retail business.

Funding for the move was supported by Clydesdale Bank in a deal facilitated by Relationship Manager Simon Campbell.
 
Like other local businesses, the company’s current premises were severely damaged by December’s floods. Seeing an opportunity amid the upheaval, Peter Jack, founder and owner of the business decided to look for a new, larger site.

He said: “The move has allowed us to retain all of our staff throughout the difficult period following the floods and set solid foundations to build on for our future.
 
“The extra space we will soon have has allowed us to diversify our offering, creating the new driving range site.  

“We are also planning to open a nine-hole par 3 course and a nine-hole foot golf facility. Foot golf is really taking off in the UK with a number of leagues set up and even a national team.

“Seeing the floods severely damage the business my wife Val and I set up 26 years ago was heart-breaking, but we’ve managed to bounce back and we are now in an even stronger position for the future.
 
“Clydesdale Bank’s support has been invaluable throughout the process.”
 
Simon Campbell, Relationship Manager at Clydesdale Bank’s Business and Private Banking Centre in Carlisle, said: “Carlisle Golf Centre is a well-established local business and we are proud to support their expansion plans.
 
“Peter’s optimistic approach to the future of the business has allowed them to retain all of their staff and even look to future growth. They are a fine example of a local business overcoming adversity.”

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CONSTRUCTION industry analyst Barbour ABI has been awarded a contract following a competitive tender process to provide the Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) with data regarding Starter Home projects.

Barbour ABI, a chosen partner of the Cabinet Office and the Office for National Statistics, will collect, analyse and monitor starter home planning applications for the DCLG, providing a clear picture of Starter Home projects, from the beginning of the planning application stage to work starting on site.

The Government is committed to delivering 200,000 starter homes by 2021. The data provided by Barbour ABI to DCLG will be used to monitor the construction of starter homes.

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THE steelwork behind a new £15m state-of-the-art training academy that will train the employees of the future at BAE Systems has been completed.

The 420 tonnes of steel have been erected since last summer when work began on the academy at the company’s Military Air & Information site in Samlesbury, Lancashire.

It will be completed to welcome the next intake of apprentices who join with the company in September.

Dave Holmes, manufacturing operations director was joined by investments director Nigel Aspin, academy manager Wilf Monk, technical apprentices Toby Dalglish and Richard Bradley, who have been involved in the construction project and business apprentice Florence Morgan, to mark the completion of the steelwork.

They helped to tighten the ‘golden bolt’ which marked the completion of the steelwork.

He said: “This Academy will provide our future apprentices and graduates with modern, flexible facilities and cutting-edge technology to ensure they are equipped with skills required for the long-term.”

Florence said: “It was great to see how the new Academy is progressing, even though it is only steelwork now, you can see the sheer scale of the facility and the commitment to the training programmes the Company provides its workforce.”

Work is now underway to complete the exterior of the building which is planned to be watertight this summer.

The Academy is the first development on the Lancashire Enterprise Zone at Samlesbury.

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HOUSING and regeneration specialist Galliford Try Partnerships, which markets its homes under the award winning Linden Homes banner, has held a ground breaking ceremony to mark the beginning of its highly anticipated St Augustine’s development in Oldham.

The official event, which took place at the former school site, was attended by representatives from Galliford Try Partnerships and Linden Homes accompanied by Leader of Oldham Council, Cllr Jean Stretton. Attendees conducted a ceremonial breaking of the ground before taking a tour of the 1.8 hectare site which when complete will provide 54 new homes.

The redevelopment, which is welcomed by Oldham Council will see a mixture of three and four bedroom detached and semi-detached homes built for open market sale under the Linden Homes brand.

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PRESTON-based Conlon Construction has been appointed to the YORbuild2 framework, enabling the company to bid for local authority, public sector and third sector schemes across Yorkshire and Humber, the Sheffield LEP area, North East England and Lincolnshire.

Conlon has been appointed to a total of 14 YORbuild2 lots, including four for the framework’s North region and two each for the South, East and West regions, covering projects valued between £250,000 to £1m and from £1m to 4m.

The appointment follows a 16-month selection process involving submission and evaluation of 133 PQQs (Pre-qualification questionnaires) and 73 tenders by 22 officers from councils within the YORbuild2 area.

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WARRINGTON architecture and interior design firm DV8 Designs is celebrating a decade in business.

Over the past 10 years, managing director Lee Birchall and his team of seven staff have built up an expansive portfolio, spanning an eclectic range of residential and commercial projects across the North West and beyond.

To celebrate the notable business milestone, the firm based within Birchwood Park have put together a top ten list of diverse projects, which include The Old Blind School (Liverpool), Beef and Pudding (Manchester), Bridgend Leisure Centre (Bridgend), Waveney Sports & Leisure Centre (Lowestoft), Gulliver’s Hotel & Leisure Park (Warrington), Mercedes Petronas (Brackley), Newmarket Racecourse (Newmarket), Jolly Thresher (Lymm), Ring O Bells (Christleton) and Beer Studio (Fallowfield).  

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BARDSLEY Construction has secured its first project with Westby Homes after being appointed to provide 32 luxury apartments on the site of the former Parkway Hotel in Lytham St Annes, Lancashire.

Greater Manchester-based Bardsley will demolish existing hotel buildings in Fairhaven Road prior to the construction of a four-storey building for the  apartments with landscaping, car parking, new access arrangements and other external works.

Work on the project valued at £3.3m has just started with the scheme due for completion in the spring of 2017.

Bolton-based Westby Homes specialises in the provision of select small to medium-sized developments in desirable locations such as Lytham St Annes ranging from two-bedroom apartments to five-bedroom family homes.

Ged Rooney, procurement director at Bardsley Construction, said: “Our first appointment by Westby Homes provides concrete evidence of the benefits of our longstanding and hard-earned reputation for the delivery of high quality residential developments for the private and public sectors throughout the North West of England and we look forward to securing further contracts in the region.”

Bardsley Construction, founded in 1964 and with a turnover in excess of £50m, recently featured in a London Stock Exchange (LSE) listing of the 1,000 companies to inspire Britain.

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WEST Lancashire-based building group Construction Partnership UK (CPUK) has successfully completed work clearing a disused steelworks site in Wolverhampton ready for a £20m regeneration project.
 
The £1.5m clean-up at Pantheon Park was undertaken by the  group’s specialist CPUK Civils & Remediation division.
 
It has made the site, a disused portion of the existing Acenta steelworks at Willenhall, suitable for future “cost-effective” commercial development.
 
The contract included demolishing existing buildings and undertaking extensive remediation work and ground levelling on the Wednesfield Way site, next to Bentley Bridge retail park, near Wolverhampton.
 
The 18-acre site has detailed planning permission for 412,000sq ft of manufacturing, warehouse and distribution space with 24/7 operations.

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SOUTHWAY Housing Trust and builder and developer Seddon have begun the delivery of a £2.1m scheme to regenerate the former site of a former social club in Manchester.

The site at Ladybarn Social Club on Beverly Road, which has been left empty since the club moved to its current premises on the corner of Green and Rink Streets in 2013, is to be transformed into 18 one-bedroom and eight two-bedroom flats across three buildings.
 
All the homes are being developed for affordable rent, and are to be built to the Lifetime Homes standard, a set of 16 criteria to ensure high quality housing.

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THE Best Western Cresta Court hotel in Altrincham, Greater Manchester has unveiled the refurbishment of its 14 executive bedrooms as a part of phase two of a £1.5m investment programme.

The revamp of the hotel started 18 months ago with upgrades to the main bedrooms, bar and reception area.

The Hotel is also planning to complete the last elements of its meeting room refit this year, with the addition of new carpeting, finish an overhaul to its bedroom corridors and plans are underway to redevelop its main restaurant.