Out of Town: Meteor Park
LOCATED in the shadow of Spaghetti Junction, Meteor Park is small urban industrial estate with a lot offer potential tenants. TheBusinessDesk.com has a look around its warehouses.
Meteor Park, in the industrial heartland Aston, was built and is being let the Slough Estates Group (SEGRO) but it has struggled to find tenants for Units 3 and 4, its biggest sheds.
The warehouses, 58,000 and 115,000 sq ft respectively, would appear to offer everything an industrial occupier, and in particular a logistics firm, could want.
They are currently being marketed by Knight Frank and DTZ whose industrial agency associate director, John Sambrooks, explains how the site has become a victim of the economic downturn.
“I think the last two or three years have been very difficult in the industrial sector, as it has been across the whole economy,” he told TheBusinessDesk.com.
“Unit 3 might have appealed to a company that was in a 25,000 or 30,000 sq ft and looking to grow while Unit 4 might have been for national companies looking for regional hubs.
“But over the last couple of years there has been very limited take up. There’s been some consolidation and obviously the smaller occupier maybe hasn’t really looked at growth, they’ve looked at consolidation.
“The type of company that might have taken Unit 3 over the last two years hasn’t looked to move. Similarly, for Unit 4 there has been very little activity within the Birmingham and M6 market for that 100,000 sq ft size.”
Mr Sambrooks, right, agreed those companies who had enquired about Unit 3 were generally looking to downsize rather than grow.
“We are hopeful companies will have taken the last two years for consolidation and looking at their businesses,” he added.
“They may be at a point where they have done the consolidation, their business is on a level footing and now they’re looking to do the growth that maybe they were looking to do two or three years ago but weren’t able to.”
Meteor Park is approximately 10 acres in size and sits less than half a mile from Junction 6 of the M6, with rents just shy of £6 per square foot for the vacant units.
SEGRO invested around £10m in revamping the former Delta Metals site which was opened in two phases during 2007 and 2008.
The first saw the 37,000 sq ft Unit 1 let to recruitment firm Fourstar Employment and Skills and the 22,000 sq ft Unit 2 let to document storage specialists PHS Datasafe.
SEGRO is headquartered in Slough but has sites across Europe and the UK, including Trafford Park, neighbour to one of the country’s largest and most popular shopping destinations, the Trafford Centre.
It also owns the Kings Norton Business Centre, south of Birmingham, which is home to the company’s regional office.
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