Nano Park small workspace revolution rolls into a fresh location

A brand new Nano Park development is to be built in Armley, Leeds, and is expected to create up to 50 jobs.

The Nano Park Company, which has already built 18,000 sq ft of prime workshop and office space in small units in Bradford, is now rolling out this concept across Yorkshire.

The Nano Park model creates small employment spaces, providing an ideal base for small and fledgling companies and satellite operations for larger firms.

Edward Marshall, a director of the Bradford-based Nano Park Company, explained: “The astounding success of our ground-breaking Nano Park in Bradford, which is completely full, has encouraged us to repeat the model elsewhere in Yorkshire.”

His business has bought a one-acre site in Pickering Street, Armley for £300,000 from Yorkshire textile company James Hare. The deal was brokered by the Leeds office of Carter Towler.

Marshall added: “This is an ideal location for us, midway between Leeds city centre and the Leeds Outer Ring Road, with its swift access to Yorkshire’s excellent motorway network. Ours will be one of only a very few small industrial schemes in the city.

“The arrival of Channel 4 in Leeds is acting as a catalyst for a creative resurgence in the city, while Yorkshire Television’s studios are only two minutes away, so we will be looking to attract artistic, tech and media companies, as well as the more traditional small industrial property occupiers.

“At Armley we will be speculatively building seven small hybrid units, with warehousing space below and offices above, together with a larger, stand-alone 5,000 sq ft unit. We are in the age of the entrepreneur with more and more small and start-up companies looking for self-contained space of their own. We expect up to 50 jobs will be created on site.”

A planning application for the eight units will be submitted to Leeds City Council shortly and, if approved, work to create the Nano Park will begin in the third quarter of the year. It will be ready for occupation in spring next year.

Marshall said: “We are now providing flexible, affordable and attractive business premises to help companies of this type to grow and prosper, where they want to be. This could be in an attractive setting, a great location or a site with superb transport links.  They were snapped up at Bradford – and we have every confidence they will be in Armley.”

Charlie Hare, director of James Hare, said the site was once occupied by the company’s Bankfield Mills.

“It now houses a small office park called Armley Court, with an acre of adjacent development land,” he said. “It is that land which the Nano Park Company has bought. This was an excellent deal, which suited both parties and was conducted in the best of spirits.”

Josh Holmes, of Carter Towler, said: “We advise both James Hare and Frank Marshall Estates, the owners of the Nano Park Company, so we are delighted this deal has come to such a satisfactory conclusion.

The Nano Park Company now intends to roll out the Nano Park concept elsewhere across Yorkshire, with specific sites already earmarked in Halifax, Wakefield and Skipton.

Marshall concluded: “I think we’ve dropped on the right idea at exactly the right time. If all goes well, and we find the right sites, we could build three or four Nano Parks a year.”