Five more occupiers for mill complex

Five new office deals have been completed at Sunny Bank Mills, a mill complex between Leeds and Bradford.

Seven Districts Coffee, The Hip Store, Brainstorm, Applied Creative and White Rose Training have all moved into new offices at the refurbished mill in Farsley.

Sunny Bank Mills is now home to more than 75 companies, which employ a total of 400 staff.

These five deals come hard on the heels of a raft of significant office, retail and leisure lettings at Sunny Bank Mills during the past few weeks.

John Gaunt, joint managing director of Edwin Woodhouse, the owners of Sunny Bank Mills, said: “We are especially pleased to welcome our new occupiers to Sunny Bank Mills as we emerge from a very challenging year.

“There is now a degree of optimism within the Yorkshire business community and these new deals reflect this. We are really excited to play our part in the continuing prosperity of our new tenants.”

Isaac Stott, of Seven Districts Coffee, explained the speciality coffee roaster company had chosen Sunny Bank Mills because “it is a really creative, exciting place, with a great community.”

“Our business has been steadily been growing over the last year, even during lockdown, and we now need a hub for our core team to meet, plan and continue to build momentum,” he said.

“Sunny Bank Mills is the perfect spot to give us this space, with lots of other interesting and growing businesses, providing the chance for sharing ideas and collaborations and simply being inspired.”

James Trivunovic, of Hip Store, which is relocating from opposite Kirkgate Market in Leeds city centre, said: “Our business is built on a 35-year history within clothing retail in Leeds, so where better to have a HQ than in an amazing reconditioned textile mill?

“Here we have the ideal mix of creating content within the space we work in, coupled with our global audience seeing the real authenticity of the Hip brand first hand. Our business is completely based on community and curation.”

“We are consolidating all our teams from across three locations in Leeds, Bury and South Manchester into one beautiful space where we can work as one unit.

“By the end of this year we’ll have grown into footwear, lifestyle, homewares and women’s products. Our ambition is to be the best modern lifestyle store in the UK, curated for our customers.”

Chris Parkinson, of Applied Creative, added: “To see Yorkshire’s old mills re-purposed for the modern day is really inspiring and, with the diverse mix of businesses and galleries within the Mill, Sunny Bank was just a perfect fit for us.”

Sarah-Jayne Lishman, of Leeds-based property consultancy Dove Haigh Phillips, which is marketing Sunny Banks Mills, added: “The owners took the brave decision to invest heavily in their mill and this decision has paid dividends.

“Steeped in history and with massive potential, Sunny Bank Mills is now one of the prime business locations in the West Leeds area.”