Property news: Savills and Parkinson; TBF & KL; Sanderson Weatherall; Le Maitre; Sharp Project & more

SAVILLS and Parkinson Chartered Surveyors & Property Consultants have been instructed by a private landlord as joint letting agents at 1 Smithy Court, an office building at Pemberton Business Park in Wigan.

The three-storey property offers 25,500sq ft of business accommodation which is available from small suites of  2,00 sq ft to combinations of floors totalling up to 12,600 sq ft.

Daniel Barnes, associate in the office agency team at Savills, said: “With flexible office space, an attractive landscaped environment and excellent connectivity, 1 Smithy Court would be well suited to a wide range of local and national corporate occupiers.”

Quoting rents at the property are £10.00 per sq ft.

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TBF & KL Thompson Trust has instructed Lambert Smith Hampton (LSH) to let 28,377sq ft of Grade A office space at Sankey House in Warrington.
 
Situated within Birchwood Point Business Park, the self-contained office space at Sankey House is split over three floors and was until recently occupied by Amec Foster Wheeler.
 
The office, which is fully furnished and fitted out to a high standard, comes with 157 car parking spaces, full access raised floors and air conditioning.
 
Josh Levy, director of office agency at LSH said: “Birchwood Park is considered to be one of the North West’s most desirable business locations, and it’s not hard to see why. It is fast becoming a location of choice for medium and large businesses looking to relocate, due to its proximity to Manchester, Liverpool and nearby commuter hubs.
 
“There are great shopping and leisure facilities on-site or close by, it has an active and growing business community, good transport links, and none of the parking problems that some locations suffer with.”

Current tenants at the Birchwood Point Business Park include Atkins and US sportswear brand New Balance, whose UK headquarters are located on the park.
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MANCHESTER-based chartered surveyor and property consultancy Sanderson Weatherall has successfully sourced a filming location for Shine North, a broadcast television and video production company based in Manchester’s MediaCity.

Shine North will be using a unit at Mersey Road Industrial Estate in Failsworth to film the pilot of a new TV series for CBBC, the BBC’s children’s television strand.

Sanderson Weatherall have worked with Shine North on a number of location searches, including securing filming space for Supercar Megabuild, a UK factual entertainment program commissioned by and aired on the National Geographic Channel.
 
David Murray, commercial property agent at Sanderson Weatherall said: “Since MediaCityUK opened five years ago we have seen a big increase in film and production companies requiring local space for filming.

“Our knowledge of the property market makes us ideally suited to search for and negotiate on these types of short term lets.”

Sanderson Weatherall has nine UK offices, including one in Manchester’s Spring Gardens, employs around 200 people and has a turnover of £15m.

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A HUSBAND and wife team have fulfilled their lifelong dream of opening their own bed and breakfast establishment.

Gary and Shirley Bromage have opened bed and breakfast Le Maitre in Southport following a six-figure funding deal with NatWest.

Located on Bath Street, Le Maitre has nine luxury en suite bedrooms. Prior to opening Le Maitre the couple worked in the hospitality trade – Gary worked as a chef while Shirley worked as a hotel manager.
 
Shirley said: “We have always wanted to open a bed and breakfast of our own. We have the experience so it was just finding the right place for us to run the business. We searched for about a year and a half for the premises and found Le Maitre last autumn. It was previously a guest house so it was very straight forward to make it our own.”

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HOT on the heels of the recent announcement that new independent game studio Fabrik has taken a 1,200sq ft space at The Sharp Project, Manchester’s digital production complex, two more companies in the gaming sector have signed up, helping to cement the creative digital hub’s position as the new home of the gaming sector in Manchester.
 
Founded in late 2014 by Dr Luke Thompson and Gary Lloyd, SIGTRAP Games, a small indie game studio, has relocated to The Sharp Project from Huddersfield.  

Creating focused, no filler indie games, their debut product is Sublevel Zero, a roguelike 6-degree-of-freedom strategic shooter set in a universe where reality is falling apart. Published by Mastertronic, it was released on PC, Mac and Linux in October last year.

Also on site is Boomdash Digital, a free to play mobile publisher, which helps finish and shape existing games to make them more commercially viable.

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NICHE property investment company Beaconsfield Estates has secured new tenants at two of its recently refurbished office buildings in Manchester city centre.

Pension review and investment advice provider, Alexandra Associates (UK) has taken a second floor suite of 1,913sq ft on a 5 year lease at Kenworthys Buildings on Bridge Street, relocating its’ office from Lymm in the process.

Specialist property investment consultant Stewart Montrose has taken a third floor suite of 539 sq ft at 49 King Street on a 3 year lease, relocating within the city centre.

Both buildings were acquired in 2015 by Beaconsfield, which also counts 34 King Street, 74 King Street/41 Cross Street,  1 North Parade and 5 The Parsonage, all in Manchester city centre, within its portfolio.

Speaking about the deals, Conrad O’Neill, director at Canning O’Neill, sole letting agents for the buildings, said: “Beaconsfield have carried out a high quality refurbishments at both buildings to provide character offices with a ‘boutique’ style. Attention to detail has been paramount with a mix of retained original features and contemporary finishes.”

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WHR Property Consultants has been appointed as the managing agent for One Didsbury Point – a 55,000 sq ft Grade A office building in South Manchester – which changed hands last month in a £9.5m deal.

Joint venture partners, Titanium Real Estate (“Titanium”) and Chenavari Investment Managers (“CIM”) acquired the building.

One Didsbury Point – which is currently home to Optegra and Bouygues – is prominently located on Princes Parkway mid-way between Manchester Airport and Manchester city centre.

Anna Main, partner at WHR, said: “This is a significant new instruction for us.  One Didsbury Point is set to undergo a refurbishment, which will further improve the building. 

The WHR asset and property management department was set up just a year ago and we now provide asset and property management advice on over three million sq ft of commercial property across the UK.”

Cushman & Wakefield and CBRE have been retained as the joint letting agents.