The opportunity to undertake a large mixed-use development in a UK city centre is extremely unusual in this day and age. The opportunity to build a scheme of this nature in a large city like Birmingham is rarer still. But that’s exactly what one lucky developer will have the opportunity to do if they emerge as the successful bidder for the 43-acre Icknield Port Loop regeneration site near
Edgbaston Reservoir. Outline consent for up to 1,150 dwellings and 6,960 sq ft of new retail, service, employment, leisure and onresidential institutions has already been approved for the site, which sits within the area covered by the Greater Icknield
Masterplan.
Also: Birmingham has unveiled a £600m masterplan to transform its business district into a Canary Wharf style zone to attract
global business and finance firms. The 20-year Snow Hill Masterplan aims to create 10,000 new jobs, generate over 200,000 sq m of new office space and boost the local economy by over £600m each year. The plan outlines how Snow Hill station’s car park will be replaced with new office buildings, while a new concourse area will be created and new walking routes provided through the station. It is designed to support existing investments including the £30m restoration of the historic Grand Hotel, the arrival of
HS2’s new construction headquarters at Two Snowhill – which will employ 1,500 people – and the extension of the £127m Midland
Metro network.
Construction is set to begin on the £440m redevelopment of Oxford’s Westgate shopping centre. The Westgate Oxford Alliance, a joint venture by The Crown Estate and Land Securities, confirmed that preparatory works are set to begin immediately, with construction to begin in spring this year. The announcement follows more than four years of preparation, extensive public consultation and the approval of a reserved matters application by Oxford City Council. It also coincides with several leasing commitments from national and international retailers. The 800,000sq ft retail and leisure scheme is due for completion in autumn
2017. It will comprise over 100 new stores, 25 restaurants and cafes, a boutique cinema, roof top terrace dining and new public spaces.
Paisley-based Barr Construction has been awarded the £20 million contract to build Irvine’s new leisure centre, creating a single
venue for sports, cultural events and exhibitions in the centre of the Ayrshire town. Barr Construction will start work in March on a specially designed facility to replace the Magnum Leisure Centre, built in the 1970s. The new facility will feature a main pool, a teaching pool, six-court sports hall, studios, a state-of-the-art fitness suite and both wet and dry changing areas. Both pools will have a viewing area at mezzanine level for spectators. An existing Grade B Listed town house will be integrated into the new facility and
Barr Construction will restore and refurbish the property to compliment the leisure centre by installing a reception area, offices, research and creative rooms. The facility will also include a function hall and exhibition areas. Irvine Leisure Centre is set to open its doors in January 2017.
Travelodge is set to embark on a £1.3bn expansion programme targeting 205 new hotel sites, in a sign of renewed ambition from
the once struggling chain. The move, which has been in the planning since Peter Gowers took the role of chief executive last year, is part of a strategy to improve and upgrade its portfolio by 2022 and will see Travelodge attempt to regain ground ceded to Premier
Inn, which has 30% more rooms and is the UK’s biggest budget hotel chain. Travelodge faced financial collapse in 2012 before a bailout package resulted in the group being taken over by its creditors, banking giant Goldman Sachs and US-based hedge funds
Avenue Capital Group and Goldentree Asset Management. The rescue deal involved Travelodge entering a Company Voluntary
Arrangement, selling 49 hotels and writing off £235m of debt. Since then it has largely focused on refurbishments and reducing its debt pile. Agents representing Travelodge across the country are contacting developers and landowners offering them 25-year leases, backed by the group’s US investors. The landowner would then build the hotel to Travelodge’s specifications and the hotel group would fund the fit-out. Travelodge has also written to 140 local authorities to offer the same deal being offered to developers and landowners. Since sending the letter in December, four councils have expressed an interest in developing hotels and leasing them to the group. The growth plan comes after rival Premier Inn launched its own £1bn expansion plan in 2013 aimed at increasing its portfolio by 45% to 75,000 bedrooms by 2018. Travelodge’s plan will see it increase its bedrooms from 39,000 to around 50,000 and increase the number of hotels in its group from 500 to around 700. The largest concentration of new openings will be in London and the South East, but the expansion programme will take in other towns and cities, as well as some motorway service station locations.

Starbucks recorded a profit of £1.1m in the year to September 2014, the first profit it has recorded since arriving in Britain in
1998. This compared to a £20m loss in the previous year. The coffee chain said it had achieved growth by closing stores with expensive rent, and by moving to cheaper locations. Starbucks has implemented a turnround plan in the last three years, reshuffling its store portfolio. In that time, the company has closed 67 unprofitable stores and opened 121 new stores in more profitable locations and formats, taking its total number of stores to 791.
Although this is a US based survey into hotel development costs I thought it would still be of interest to BCFA members even if they are not trading in the US as the 11 page report (follow the link at the end of this story) includes some revealing stats that can be translated to other markets:
HVS has tracked hotel construction costs throughout the United States since 1976. Each year, HVS researches development costs from our database of actual hotel construction budgets, industry reports, and uniform franchise offering circulars. These sources
provide the basis for our range of component costs per room. This 2014/15 survey reports updated per-room hotel development costs through the end of 2014, and considers data for six lodging types:
• Economy/Budget Hotels,
• Midscale Hotels without Food and Beverage (w/o F&B),
• Extended-Stay Hotels,
• Midscale Hotels with Food and Beverage (w F&B),
• Full-Service Hotels, and
• Luxury Hotels and Independent Resorts.
In the HVS Hotel Development Cost Survey, the elements of a hotel development budget are broken down into five general categories: Land; Construction Costs and Site Improvements; Soft Costs; Furniture, Fixtures, and Equipment (FF&E); and Pre-opening and Working Capital. These categories provide general ranges for analyzing hotel development budgets on a per-room basis. The classifications are broad enough for professionals with different expertise to work with and understand.
New-project construction cost data collected may increase the range and/or affect the mean and median of the construction cost components. The upper and lower ends of the ranges also consider changes in construction cost components derived from published sources and industry indexes, and information from architects, contractors, developers, lenders, and other professionals involved with hotel development projects.
The Hotel Development Cost Survey includes actual ranges of development costs in each category. The survey is not meant to be a comparative tool to calculate changes from year to year—rather, it represents the true costs of building hotels across the United
States at the particular time. As in previous years, the data represent a wide array of geographical locations, from tertiary markets in the Southwest to mid- Manhattan. The development costs of the same hotel product, say a limited-service Fairfield Inn or Holiday
Inn Express, can be more than triple the amount from one locale to the other.
Click here ( Adobe Acrobat PDF file) to download the complete article.
The Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) has given a grant of £7.8m (US$11.8m, €10.4m) to ‘The Sill’ a new visitor centre for Hadrian’s
Wall and Northumberland National park. The most recent plans for ‘The Sill’ were announced in October 2014, outlining that the project needed at least £11.2m (US$17.9m, €14.3m) to get it off the ground. The HLF grant will help to secure the future of the project, while other donations and revenues are expected as the current funding shortfall stands at £2.2m (US$3.3m, €2.9m). The
Sill National Landscape Discovery Centre, has been designed by Newcastle-based architects Jane Darbyshire and David Kendall
(JDDK). Once complete, the scheme will offer an all-weather centre, with hostel accommodation, retail facilities and a cafe. It is hoped that The Sill will attract more than 100,000 visitors per annum. Construction is expected to begin on site this year, with plans for opening in June 2017.
Tune Group has announced that its newly-launched Canary Wharf location marks the start of a strategic push to boost its low-
cost hospitality arm’s presence in London. The 130-bedroom Tune Hotel Canary Wharf opened its doors last week, targeted at workers in the financial district, as well as individuals flying in and out of nearby London City Airport. Building on this momentum,
Shoreditch will be the home of the sixth London Tune Hotel in 2016, while further openings are currently being finalised for what is expected to be a £40m investment in the capital. The London-centric strategy follows hot on the heels of the announcement that the Group is to invest £200m into its low-cost hospitality arm as part of plans to open up to 25 new Tune Hotels in the UK by 2020.
The private investment group – helmed by entrepreneur and Queen’s Park Rangers Football Club owner Tony Fernandes – is eager to expand its hotel operations in the UK’s growing low-cost sector, which could serve as the springboard for a push into the
European market. The no frills business model – similar to that of low-cost airline AirAsia that Fernandes co-founded – focuses on high quality beds and showers, with UK rooms starting from £25 a night.
Truro City Football Club (TCFC) has announced plans for a new stadium to the west of the city. Helical Retail, the club’s development partner, has acquired an option from Wycliffe Estates to purchase a site known as Silver Bow, at Threemilestone, for the club’s relocation. The site is directly opposite the entrance to the proposed Langarth Development, which has planning consent for 1,500 houses. Helical Retail expects to submit a planning application for a football ground and related uses in the next few months. No details on the stadium’s size or design have been released, but Peter Masters, chair of TCFC said the venue would also host a the club’s new academy – a first for Cornwall.
Accor has announced that it is to open seven budget brand Ibis hotels to add to its 90+ UK sites. The hotels - in Canning Town,
London; Greenwich, London; London Heathrow Airport; Crewe; Barnsley; Haydock; and Birmingham NEC - include one property under the prescriptive Ibis badge, while the rest are branded as Ibis Styles, a brand which offers more flexibility and individuality.

Four Ibis Styles hotels – in Crewe (112 bedrooms), Barnsley (117 bedrooms), Haydock (102 bedrooms) and Birmingham NEC (166 bedrooms) - are due to open this year under a franchise agreement with Carillion. They will be operated by Kew Green Hotels.
The three hotels in the capital include the 196-bedroom Ibis London Canning Town in the Hallsville Quarter development, which is part of the Canning Town and Custom House mixed-use, regeneration programme. It is being developed by Bougues Development.
Work has already started on a 46-bedroom Ibis Styles hotel in Greenwhich, which is expected to open in early 2016. It will operate under a franchise agreement with Conqueror Holdings. Meanwhile the third new London hotel will be a 140-bedroom Ibis Styles at
London Heathrow Airport, following the signing of a franchise agreement with Acre Heathrow, which is part of Acre Hotels and
Westcombe Group. It is set to open in the summer of 2016. Originally launched in 1974, Ibis has 1,738 properties worldwide, including 92 in the UK.
Melia Hotels International has announced the company’s latest additions will include new hotels in the UK, bringing it's British
portfolio to five sites. The urban brand, Innside by Melia, will see the launch of Innside Glasgow (175 rooms), and Innside
Birmingham (180 rooms). The Innside brand has increased from 8 hotels in 2008 to 36 hotels open or in the opening process in different destinations in Europe, Asia and the Americas. The Melia portfolio now stands at 378 hotels open or in the process of opening in 41 countries on four continents.
The RDS and Leinster Rugby have announced the winner of an international design competition for the €20m redevelopment of
the RDS arena, in Ballsbridge, Co Dublin. A consortium of architect firms, Dublin-based Newenham Mulligan Architects and
London-based Grimshaw Architects, has won the international design competition for the multimillion-euro redevelopment of the
RDS Arena. The RDS, with their partners Leinster Rugby, will work to complete the design of a world class RDS Arena that will host professional rugby matches, equestrian sports, music concerts and other appropriate sporting opportunities as they arise.
Urban Pubs and Bars,has announced the acquisition of its fifth site, an Enterprise Inns site, The Wheatsheaf, in Tooting. The
Wheatsheaf previously owned by Antiic, faced 18 months of uncertainty, with the potential closure prompting huge community concern and a campaign called Save the Wheatsheaf started with the backing of Tooting MP Sadiq Khan.
Troubled pub and club group, Intertain has agreed to undertake a Company Voluntary Arrangement (CVA) which allows it to pay
creditors over a fixed period. The firm has appointed Zolfo Cooper as its restructuring advisor to administer the CVA. Through the
CVA approval, Intertain will see its debt reduced from £30m to £14m. The group's lenders have agreed to fund Intertain’s capital investment programme with £6m. A number of the company's less profitable outlets are predicted to face closure in the spring.
Enterprise Inns has reported £36m in pre-tax profits for 2014, compared with a £42m loss in 2013 due to exceptional costs of over
£160m. The pub operator's like-for-like net income growth for its leased and tenanted estate increased by 0.3% in the 18 weeks to
31 January 2015. Enterprise Inns said it was reviewing its capital investment plans after the House of Commons in November amended the Small Business, Enterprise and Employment Bill, which could provide a 'market rent only' option for pubs. However, the company added it remained committed to invest £70m in the future.
Thai restaurant group, Koh Thai Tapas has acquired its eighth outlet, and second in Hampshire with a site in Ringwood Hampshire
and plans to open in April this year. Koh Thai Tapas is embarking on a planned growth programme, with a vision of 3 openings per year to reach 23 sites. Other towns being considered for expansion include Lymington, Salisbury, Romsey and Winchester. The group has recently finished a refurbishment of its original KTT site and a complete review of their existing operations as well as centralising its head office to new headquarters in Bournemouth. Koh Thai Tapas was founded in 2009 by Jay Hampton, Andrew
Lennox and Nick Billingham.
Newham Council in London has just grant planning permission for the development and extension of London City Airport – a
development which will also include a new hotel. The proposed £200million development will triple the size of the existing terminal as well as creating a new six-storey four-star hotel with 260 bedrooms. Subject to the Mayor of London’s final planning approval, construction is expected to start by the end of this year with a final completion date expected in 2023.
London is among the locations targeted by Langham Hospitality Group (LHG) for its new luxury global hotel brand, Cordis Hotels
and Resorts. The business announced the launch of the brand last week, saying it would represent a "new generation of curated hotels devoted to guests' needs". The portfolio will include a mix of new build and conversion projects in key cities in Asia and
North America. The first Cordis hotel is expected to open in Hong Kong this year. Meanwhile, Cordis has also signed management agreements and letters of intent to open eight hotels in seven cities in the next three years, including five hotels in China, one in
Bali, Indonesia, and one in Colombo, Sri Lanka. Other cities targeted include London, New York, Miami, Los Angeles, Orlando, San
Francisco, Dubai, Singapore and Bangkok. The news comes as the company last year announced that it was looking to expand its presence through the introduction of two new hotel brands. Langham Hospitality Group currently has 29 hotels around the world in its portfolio, including 13 under the Langham brand, 10 under the Langham Place brand, five under the Eaton hotel brand, and the independent Chelsea hotel in Toronto, Canada.
Expanding pub group Red Mist Leisure has taken over the lease of its sixth site, the Headley Hills in Headley, Surrey. Owned and run by Julian Clarke, Mark Robson and Mark Williams, the company has closed the property to carry out an extensive refurbishment.
The pub will open under its original name, the Cock Inn, in March. Creative director Abi Perry-Jones is overseeing the redesign,

which will draw on inspiration from the local area, with the wide use of traditional tweeds and warm copper. Jones AD, a company which has worked with Red Mist for seven years, has been appointed as architect and designer. Red Mist Leisure also own the
Queen’s Head, East Clandon; Duke of Cambridge, Tilford; the Stag on the River, Eashing; the Exchequer, Crookham; and the
Wheatsheaf, Farnham.
Tesco-owned restaurant chain Giraffe is to open three more sites this spring. Giraffe will launch at Cheshire Oaks Designer Outlet and Tesco Ipswich Mertlesham Extra in March, followed by a third site on Glasgow's 1 West Regent Street in April. The Cheshire
Oaks restaurant will be the second project Giraffe has undertaken with landlord McArthur Glen, following a recent launch at the
Swindon Designer Outlet. They are seeking to open 10 new sites this year. Giraffe operates 60 restaurants around the UK, seven of which are at airports, as well as three restaurants in the United Arab Emirates.
Detail plans have granted for £3m leisure & hotel South Car Park, Feethams Town Hall, Darlington on behalf of Urban & Civic Plc the agent is Niven Architects.
Plans have been approved for £16.5m 183/apart hotel/commercial units for HSBC Pension Trust. The developer is Building
Management Services/ Hodder & Partners. Gateway House, Picadilly South, Manchester.
Detail plans have been granted for £25m hotel building , Willow Hotel, 10-50 Willow St. Shoreditch, London. Client is Willow Corp
Sarl and agent Ben Adams Architects.
US healthcare company Cigna has signed a deal to take almost 33,500 sq ft in the Grosvenor Building in Glasgow in one of the
largest lettings in the city in the last 12 months. The company will move into the third to the sixth floors in the Ignis UK Property
Fund-owned building, which is opposite Glasgow Central station. The company currently has offices at 220 St Vincent Street, which it will vacate, as well as a larger office in Greenock.
Flexible workspace provider Headspace has taken the final floors in 19-21 Hatton Garden, Farringdon, meaning it now occupies
the whole building. The company, which houses the likes of media start-up Buzzfeed, has signed a deal to take an additional 4,000 sq ft in the Midtown building. Headspace doubled its space in the building in February last year, before it opened its doors to tenants in November. It aims to provide a modern, stylish working environment for young and ambitious businesses in the creative, media and tech industries. It counts the London School of Photography, employee relocation platform Move Guides, and mobile app designer and developer Fueled among its tenants.
Cardiff Waterside, the Aviva Investors scheme in Cardiff Bay, has announced its Caspian Point office development is close to full
occupancy, following the completion of three new deals. Sapiens International, the insurance industry software solutions group, has taken the enitre 12,800 sq ft third floor, on a five year lease. Creditsafe Group, online company credit reports group, has taken
12,785 sq ft on a 10 year lease. Finally, Energy Saving Trust, the advisory group, has committed to 3,800 sq ft on the fourth floor.
The news also means that across the whole Cardiff Waterside office development, consisting of 460,000 sq ft, only 8% of space is left available.
The London office market produced its best performance since 2000 last year, with take-up of office space in central London
rising by 16% to 15.9m sq ft, according to Knight Frank. The ten year average figure for office take up in the capital is 13m sq ft.
The research also found that supply of office space fell by 20% in 2014 to 12.9m sq ft; the lowest level since 2000. Office rents in the City of London increased by 4% to £62.50/sq ft, in response to a 24% fall in supply, the research found. Meanwhile, rents in areas favoured by tech firms such as Shoreditch and Clerkenwell rose 5% to £52.50/sq ft, while rents in Mayfair increased by 10% to
£107.50/sq ft.
Demand for office space at Exeter Science Park and adjoining locations is set to soar, as businesses look to co-locate beside the
Met Office’s £100m supercomputer, according to a report from JLL released today. Part of the national weather agency project will be housed at the science park, with the first phase operational in September 2016 and the system reaching full capacity by 2017.
Jones Lang’s South West Market Review, themed ‘Smart Future’, anticipates more than a light flurry of companies seeking to collaborate and form partnerships with the science agency. The report also predicts that key development sites in Somerset and
Devon will see increased deals, with Cornwall following in 2016, as the next stage of the European Regional Development Funding
Convergence programme comes through. The office market in the region has had a tough 2014, with a serious shortage of quality supply, meaning an increase in business confidence was not capitalised upon.
Plans to build a 28-floor sloping office tower on one of the last remaining sites on the Canary Wharf estate have got the final
thumbs up. The London borough of Tower Hamlets’ planning committee has granted consent for the 146m high building, which will be located at One Bank Street at Heron Quays West. The distinctive building has been designed by KPF, with a view to signing up two major tenants. Outline plans were approved by Tower Hamlets back in April for the site. The detailed plan contains an

atrium giving the office design a wider skirt on the lower floors and roof terrace. Adamson Associates, acting as executive architect, is leading a full consultant team, which includes Arup as structural engineer and Hilson Moran the mechanical engineer. French bank Société Générale has signed a 25-year lease for the building’s eight bottom floors, which cover a total of 280,000 sq ft. A similar height office block is planned for the adjacent 10 Bank Street, on Heron Quays West. Enabling works have begun after it received full approval.
Major pharmaceutical group, AstraZeneca has won permission from Cambridge City Council to build a new £330m global
headquarters for 2,000 staff by the end of 2016. The new site will be located on the Cambridge Biomedical Campus and will be the company's largest centre for oncology research, as well as housing scientists focused on cardiovascular and metabolic diseases, respiratory, inflammation and autoimmune diseases and conditions of the central nervous system.
The Government has confirmed that 277 schools across England will be rebuilt or refurbished under the second phase of its
Priority School Building Programme. Around £2bn has been committed for construction work under the latest wave. The first phase of the programme pledged cash for 260 schools back in May 2012. The Priority School Building Programme is designed to be faster and cheaper than the Building Schools for the Future initiative which it replaced. The Government said: “Under the BSF it took three years for construction work to begin. “This was slashed to one year for the Priority School Building Programme, with projects costing around a third less.” Latest figures show that of the first wave of 260 Priority School Building Programme projects
16 school buildings are already open, 55 are under construction and the remaining projects are “well into the development or planning stages.”
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Laing O’Rourke has got the planning green light for a pioneering sports health and science research facility in Manchester, the
first of its kind in the UK. Manchester Institute of Health and Performance at Manchester City’s Etihad Campus has been awarded planning approval. Preparatory work is underway at the £18m sports health and science research facility which will be built next to
Manchester City’s new City Football Academy. The plan forms part of the Beswick Community Hub, that will transform the area of
East Manchester including a new sixth form college and leisure centre. The new facility has a completion date in early 2016. The plans were designed by architect AHR.
The University of Central Lancashire has unveiled a ambitious 10-year plan to transform its Preston campus. Subject to planning approval, the first stage of UCLan’s vision will see the construction of the £30m-plus Engineering Innovation Centre, due to break ground in January 2016. Simultaneously, work will begin on the creation of an iconic gateway to the University. At its heart will be a remodelled Adelphi roundabout with the construction of a new public space, provisionally known as Adelphi Square, drawing together the University and the City. The project is also hoped to spark a major focus on regeneration and business investment in the University quarter with wider benefits for Preston and beyond.
Euxton Lane Developments is to submit plans for a digital health park in Chorley. The proposals include offices, a care home and a specialist care facility, a convenience store, family pub and light industrial units.
Hyde-based Meridian Healthcare, which has 30 sites across Yorkshire and the North West, has been acquired by HC-One, a
business led by the former boss of Priory Health Clinics Dr Chai Patel and backed by US healthcare investor Formation Capital.
Financial terms were not disclosed but weekend reports valued the deal at close to £100m. Meridian is currently the 32nd largest care provider in the UK, with an annual income of £32.9m and pre-exceptional earnings of £13.5m in 2014. The majority of the 30strong portfolio are former local authority homes, but the Firth's have also invested in some high quality facilities over the last five years. HC-One said the Meridian brand would be retained and there will be no changes at the homes or with the senior management team, led by new managing director Paul Keys. The acquisition of Meridian forms part of HC-One’s plans to acquire further homes and diversify the care provided to include retirement villages, residential, nursing and home care. In November 2014,
HC-One was acquired by Formation Capital, Safanad and Court Cavendish in a £477m deal that has brought new investment.
Hampshire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust is planning to build a £150m critical treatment hospital at Waltham near Basingstoke
by 2018. The 24-hour consultant-led centre will be based at a greenfield site between Winchester and Basingstoke and will be situated alongside an £18.5m cancer centre. A pre-planning application will be submitted over the next couple of weeks to
Basingstoke and Deane Borough Council, with a full planning application submitted in March. The tender for the work should be completed by next November, and building work is expected to start in 2016 to open in autumn 2018.

Detail plans have been granted for a £5m nursing home Crammond Place, Edinburgh. Client is THI (Riverside) Ltd and developer
Gilbert Associates.
UKTI Alerts
Netherlands - Importer of stocklots searching professional restaurant kitchen equipment & furniture
This is an opportunity to trade large amounts of Professional Restaurant (kitchen) Equipment and Furniture.
This full online edition with links is available at: http://www.businessopportunities.ukti.gov.uk/uktihome/item/858100.html
Netherlands - Importer of stocklots searching large amounts of decorations, giftware and furniture
This is an opportunity to trade high volumes of Decorations, Giftware and Furniture.
This full online edition with links is available at: http://www.businessopportunities.ukti.gov.uk/uktihome/item/858080.html
Carlson Rezidor further expands its portfolio in the Middle East: The group announces the mid-market Park Inn by Radisson Dubai
Motor City; UAE (147 rooms, opening in Q1 2017) and the upper upscale Radisson Blu Hotel & Residence, Jeddah Gate; Saudi Arabia
(452 rooms, opening in Q1 2018).