NEWSFLASH 7th April 2015
Construction Confidence has hit a nine year high, this comes despite a slight dip in the latest Markit/CIPS UK Construction PMI
index to 57.8 in March from 60.1 in February. But the outlook for business prospects for the next 12 months hit its highest level
since February 2006. The author of the Markit/CIPS Construction PMI, commented : “UK construction companies are highly upbeat
about their prospects for growth over the course of the next 12 months, helped by improving economic fundamentals, strong order
books and a healthy pool of new invitations to tender. ”
Mace has bagged a contract to build a major mixed use development in Camden, North London. The 5 acre Hawley Wharf
development for real estate group, Market Tech has a construction value of £120m. It will include eight new buildings between 3
and 9 storeys, delivering 170 homes, retail, cinema, produce market and a new school. Market Tech also announced specialist
contractor McLaughlin & Harvey will build the infant and junior primary school and nursery as part of the development. The school
will be the first part of the scheme to be delivered and is expected to open at the start of the academic year in September 2016.
Market Tech owns and manages the main Camden Markets in Central London. In February it exchanged contracts to acquire two
significant commercial real estate assets - the 65,000 sq ft Interchange Building and the 50,000 sq ft mixed use Camden Wharf
scheme - in a deal worth £125m. It also secured the entire freehold of Camden Lock Market.
Morgan Sindall has started building work on the transformative mixed-use Marischal Square development in Aberdeen city
centre. Appointed by developer and urban regeneration specialist Muse Developments to construct the £107m development,
Morgan Sindall has moved on to site to deliver the two-year construction programme. Funded by Aviva Investors, the new mixeduse quarter for the city will include offices, a four-star hotel, cafés, restaurants and civic space, along with public realm
improvements around a site once dominated by the former Aberdeen City Council headquarters building St. Nicholas House.
Marischal Square plans include:
• 173,500 sq ft of Grade ‘A’ office accommodation
• circa 26,600 sq ft of ground floor café, bar and restaurant space
• a 126-bed, four-star Residence Inn by Marriott hotel
Marischal Square will be developed in a single phase with delivery anticipated in summer 2017.
Joint developers Stanhope and Benson Elliot have appointed TE Scudder as the demolition contractor for the 900,000 sq ft mixeduse development at Station Hill, Reading. The masterplan by architecture practice Allies & Morrison provides for a £500m mixeduse development which is the next piece in the redevelopment of Reading station and its surrounding area. Along with four office
buildings, Station Hill will create a new urban square, with over 90,000 sq ft of shops and leisure space as well as 300 flats. This will
be built over several phases and the plans for the 5 acre site will also include the complete remodelling and refurbishment of the
existing NCP car park to include a rooftop sports pitch. In the coming months, the 1960s Western Tower, its connecting buildings
and the derelict Friars Walk Shopping Centre will be demolished to make way for the new scheme.
International investment firm, Kames Capital is to sink £10m in improvements to the Clacton Factory Outlet shopping centre,
including a new cinema and restaurants. The plan includes three new restaurants, a drive-through restaurant, a six-screen
multiplex cinema, and a new 52,000 sq ft retail unit on the current car park site. The redevelopment will also see the creation of a
new 18,500sq ft store, next to the current Marks and Spencer store, that will be taken over by 'one of the UK’s largest discount
retailers'.
For some time, development has been picking up along the South Bank, from London Bridge right down to Nine Elms and
Vauxhall. Office and mixed-used schemes are particularly fashionable. However, the area’s food and beverage offer is struggling to
keep up. A lack of opportunities means any available space is in high demand. As a result, a new type of property is becoming
increasingly popular among operators - railway arches. The high number of train lines coming via the South Bank into central
London means the density of arches is high. To a restaurateur who wants outside space and no noise limits imposed by upstairs
residents, they hold a lot of potential. Network Rail is developing a number of railway arches along the South Bank, such as Union
Street Arches, which is a prime example of what it hopes to achieve, says Goodman. The Union Theatre is relocating to one unit
alongside a café, leaving three units for leisure operators. Each unit is about 1,250 sq ft-1,300 sq ft on ground level, with potential
for either a half or full mezzanine.
Thai food chain cooks up £10m deal keeping 100pc equity - Thai Leisure Group will open 14 restaurants over the next two years in
a bid to 'own Thai in the UK'. Thai Leisure Group, which runs 11 restaurants across Scotland and the north of England, has secured
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£10m from Santander. TLG secured the growth capital from Santander “at the 11th hour” after 18 months of talks with equity
investor BGF. BGF takes a minority stake in its investment businesses but under the terms of the Santander deal, the founders
retain 100pc of TLG through a mixture of senior debt and growth capital. Thai Leisure Group (TLG) operates two restaurant brands:
a fine dining concept, Chaophraya, and street food business Thaikhun. Founder Martin Stead said that while appetite for the high
end restaurants was limited, the second business was a scalable model. They plan to open six Thaikhun sites this year up from just
two, and a further eight in 2016. “The aim is to reach 40 locations in 40 months,” said Mr Stead. TLG generated like-for-like sales
growth of 9pc during the past year, with revenues topping £27m. The expansion will start with Oxford, Cambridge and Guildford and
cultimating with a launch in London.
Interstate Hotels & Resorts has announced the signing of 18 management agreements for a portfolio of U.K. hotels owned by an
affiliate of Cerberus Capital Management. Based in Birmingham, England, Interstate's U.K. division now comprises 59 hotels,
including signed pipeline, throughout the United Kingdom. The 18-hotel portfolio comprises 2,443 guestrooms, consisting of Holiday
Inn and Crowne Plaza branded hotels. Fifteen hotels will transition to Interstate management upon immediate effect, with three
hotels transitioning in the next few months. Thirteen of the hotels also have Spirit & Health Fitness Clubs.
York City Council planning committee has approved plans for work to start on a new 8,000-seater stadium for York City FC next to
a major retail park. Contractor ISG will now start construction in June on the £41m home stadium for York’s professional football
and rugby teams including leisure, retail, office and community facilities. The all-seater community stadium at Jockey Lane, in
Huntington will include hospitality and conferencing facilities, a new 25m six-lane swimming pool, fitness and active play facilities
and a community hub.
Glasgow City Council is to help fund the £66m revamp of the Burrell art collection in Pollok Park by 2019. The museum, which
opened in 1983, will receive a new roof, new glazing, and a major internal development which will open up two extra floors to the
public. It is expected that the museum will close in early 2016 and reopen in 2019. When it re-opens the museum will be able to
display more than 90% of the 9,000-strong collection collected by Sir William Burrell and gifted to the city in 1944. The basement
stores will be opened to the public for the first time and there will also be improved cafe and shop with a new 'civic events space
outside.'
Museum of Science & Industry of Manchester has secured funding of £1.8m to open a new gallery by 2018. The investment, by
the Wellcome Trust’s Capital Awards scheme, will allow the museum to convert its 1830 buildings, which include the first ever
railway warehouse and the oldest surviving passenger station, into a venue for exhibitions “that will inspire the next generation of
scientists and engineers”. The internal vaulted space will be opened up to create a double-height 5,000 sq ft room, and the gallery
will house temporary exhibitions and focus on biomedical displays. With over 90% of the project now funded, the museum will
begin its search in May for a design team to create the new space. The Treasury has already pledged £3.8m towards the project.
Leading serviced apartment operator Staycity has announced a shareholder restructuring that underpins its ambitious panEuropean growth plans. Staycity is one of the fastest growing serviced apartment businesses in Europe and has obtained capital
funding from Swedish finance house Proventus Capital Partners, in a deal brokered by corporate finance advisor IBI. Dublin-based
Staycity enjoyed over €125m of institutional backing in 2014 and is currently negotiating new deals valued at over €250m in major
European cities with similar blue-chip institutional investors. Staycity currently operates over 1,000 apartments in eight European
cities including Birmingham, Dublin, Edinburgh, Liverpool, London Heathrow, London Greenwich, Manchester, Paris and
Amsterdam. In addition to its 1,000 operating units, the company has a further eight purpose-built Staycity designed aparthotels
currently under construction which will see its operating stock increase to 2,000 units in the next 12 months. It intends to grow to
10,000 units in the next five years, which will reinforce its position as one of the leading European serviced apartment operators.
This year sees the opening of a 172-apartment Staycity in Birmingham, its second in the city, and a 144-apartment building in Lyon,
France. Last year Staycity acquired a lease on a prestigious site in London’s tourist hotspot, Covent Garden, which when it opens in
early 2016 will house 106 studio apartments. The interior design by the award-winning architects Heneghan-Peng, will spearhead
what will be the first of a luxury Staycity concept planned for premium city centre locations. In addition, construction work on a sixstorey, 197-apartment building in York has recently got underway, scheduled to open in Summer 2016. The development, a mix of
studio, one-bedroom and two-bedroom apartments, is adjacent to the city’s York Barbican.
The developer of what is expected to become Bristol’s only five-star hotel within the city’s historic Guildhall, has revealed plans
to expand the property into the adjoining Bank of England building. Two years ago Trevor Osborne Property Group announced
that it intended to create a 64-bedroom luxury hotel within the Grade-II-listed Guilldhall and Assize Court, which it had bought from
the city council. Now the company is extending its plans to create a 93-bedroom hotel, with its imminent acquisition of the adjacent
Bristol branch of the Bank of England, a Grade-I-listed property currently occupied by the Citizens’ Advice Bureau. Both properties
date back to the mid-19th century. There will also be a spa in the basement linked by lift to a rooftop swimming pool. The plans for
the hotel, located in Broad Street, have been backed by Bristol City Council and English Heritage. The group hope to achieve
planning consent by June, with a view to opening in 2017.
Loungers has said it is on track to reach 100 sites by the end of 2016 after opening Cordero Lounge in Frome. The Bristol-based
operator’s new 160-cover site located in a former retail unit in the town’s Westway scheme takes its current total to 60, with more
on the way. It will open Caballo Lounge in Epsom on 22 April, followed by the opening of its ninth Cosy Club, in Birmingham on 14
May and Palacio Lounge in Falmouth on 28 May. Loungers managing director Nick Collins said: “Our pipeline of new sites is
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extremely well formed now and we should see our 70th site open in September and reach our target of having 75 sites by the end of
the calendar year. It is our intention to open a further 25 sites in 2016.” Loungers net sales for the current financial year (ending
April 2015) are expected to be around £48m.
Aqua London have announced an extensive refurbishment of aqua nueva this year. The restaurant will close on Sunday 13th April
and will re-open in early June. ‘Large structural changes will refocus the spaces to unveil a destination restaurant and separate bar.
Inspired by historic Spain and sun drenched streets, the Robert Angell design will maximise both spaces with a more open-feeling
restaurant that looks through to the bar.’
Planning permission has been granted for the £7m development of a 34-bedroom luxury hotel at Birkwood House, a crumbling
Victorian mansion in Lanarkshire. Originally built in 1860 as a private residence for the McKirdy family, the Category B, Gothic
property – set within a 33 hectare estate near Lesmahagow – became a hospital for mentally-disturbed children until 2002. The new
hotel, which has now been given the go-ahead by South Lanarkshire Council, will be accompanied by the development of 165
houses in the grounds, alongside a network of community facilities. Developers Jo and Dan Lloyd, who are working in conjunction
with property company Envestco, have already completed the clearance of a number of dilapidated buildings, including a former
ward block and sanatorium, from the grounds. The hotel, which is set to open in 2016, will have a restaurant and bar, with a spa
being added at a later stage.
Japanese ramen group Ippudo is to open its second UK site, in London’s Canary Wharf, this summer. The 65-cover restaurant will
be located within the 115,000 sq ft Crossrail development, and comes after the 2014 launch of the European flagship venue in the
city’s Central St Giles. It will also follow the opening of a Paris site in the spring. The interior design and décor will be by Myu
Planning and Stiff + Trevillion Architects. Ippudo was founded in Fukuoka, Japan, by Shigemi Kawahara in 1985. Originally an
independent ramen restaurant, it now operates more than 120 sites across 13 different countries, including in Australia, Singapore,
Hong Kong, and the US.
Catalyst Capital has secured planning permission for the refurbishment of a grade-II listed office building in Manchester city
centre. Arkwright House is an eight-storey building comprising 86,970 sq ft of offices in Parsonage Gardens off Deansgate. The
building was designed in a neo-classical style by local architect Harry S Fairhurst for the English Sewing Cotton Company and
completed in 1937. Catalyst will increase the building’s overall size to nearly 105,000 sq ft, providing individual floorplates of 15,000
sq ft. Plans drawn up by architect Sheppard Robson will see the building’s lightwells infilled and glazed to provide naturally light
extensions to the the first to sixth floors. A new 7,000 sq ft open-plan office suite will be created on the seventh floor with
panoramic views to the south of the city. Refurbishment work will also take place at the ground floor lobbies, stairwells and lifts.
Construction is due to begin the second quarter of this year, with completion expected in 2016.
IPsoft, the IT systems group, has signed up to take a floor at The Leadenhall Building in the City of London. IPsoft has agreed a 10year lease on level 31 of the building, nicknamed the Cheesegrater, with landlords British Land and Oxford Properties. The group has
signed up to a 10-year lease. Level 31 provides 11,475 sq ft of office space, and IPsoft will have an option to break after five years.
The building is now 77% let or under offer. IPsoft, headquartered in New York, operates from 13 major cities worldwide. The
company, which is a provider of autonomic and cognitive IT solutions, will relocate its London office from 30 St Mary Axe.
Booming social media platform Facebook has agreed a deal to double its presence in British Land’s Regent’s Place. The company
is understood to have signed a lease for the top seven floors of 338 Euston Road, totalling around 65,000 sq ft, to add to the 87,000
sq ft it already occupies in the scheme. Other occupiers at Regent’s Place include Twitter, Debenhams and Manchester City Football
Club, which took the top floor in July 2014.
EY has agreed a 15-year lease on three floors of office space at Mosley Street Ventures’ Two St Peter’s Square in Manchester. The
accountancy firm is the first tenant to sign up at the 11-storey city centre building and will take occupancy of 41,628 sq ft on the
eighth, ninth and tenth floors in mid-2017. Work has started on the scheme which will provide 161,113 sq ft of space in total
including 5,142 sq ft of ground floor leisure uses. EY is expected to move all of its Manchester operations from 100 Barbirolli Square
where the firm currently employs 450 people.
McLaren has bagged a £28m contract with developers Allied London to construct a new 10-storey office block in Manchester’s
business district. The contractor is now onsite at the Cotton Building in Spinningfields, which will comprise 160,000 sq ft of
commercial space and over 30,000 sq ft of public amenity space. It is McLaren’s second major commerical project in Manchester.
The building will be managed by Allied London’s new property management service, developed with Capital Properties, and is due
for completion in April 2016.
National Theatre of Scotland is to create a new £5.8m 40,000 sq ft headquarters at Speirs Wharf in Glasgow by 2016. The
company will develop a disused building in the Speirs Wharf regeneration area north of the city, and turn it into a major resource for
the whole of the Scottish theatre industry. The building has been designed by RIBA award-winning architects Gareth Hoskins
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Architects. For the first time all of the Company’s 'back-room' activity will, through the new development, come under one roof,
avoiding the high costs of commercial rentals, and streamlining all operations.
Doncaster Racecourse has revived plans to build a £15m hotel by 2017, and talks are already underway with a number of leading
hotel operators who have expressed a desire in running the complex. Owners of the racecourse, Arc is in discussions with the local
authorities about the 150-bedroom development in an attempt to make the Town Moor track attractive as a conference venue.
Doncaster is not the only racecourse that is planning to diversify as Windsor racecourse is also looking at building a hotel.
London cocktail bar chain, Be At One is planning to expand its portfolio of 24 outlets with eight new sites this year. The
company's nationwide roll out is made possible by an £8m private equity deal with Piper, the private equity firm, secured last year.
Founded by Steve Locke, Rhys Oldfield and Leigh Miller, the first site, Be At One Battersea Rise, opened its doors in 1998.
Casual Dining Group will be opening five new Bella Italia restaurants over the next ten weeks, representing a £4m-plus
investment. The group will be launching its very first retail park restaurant in Bristol next week, and the largest Bella Italia to date
at 5,000sq ft with 200 covers will open in Hemel Hempstead in July. The other new openings are as follows: on 6 April - Abbey
Wood Retail Park, Filton, Bristol (6 April); for May - Bishop Centre in Taplow, Castlegate in Dudley, and Ashton Leisure Park in
Ashton-under-Lyne.
Restaurant group, Fulham Shore has acquired London-based pizza company Franco Manca for £27.5m from Rocca Limited.
Fulham Shore, which is run by former PizzaExpress chief executive David Page, plans to more than double the number Franco Manca
restaurants in the next two years from 10 to up to 26. The firm also operated The Real Greek group of restaurants.
Unite, the UK's largest trade union, has put forward an application to build new hotel, offices and conference facilities at
Birmingham Science Park Aston, near the city centre. The proposed hotel is seven storeys, the upper five of which contains 170
bedrooms above reception areas, a restaurant, bar ,and 45,750 sq ft of conference and meeting facilities capable of holding up to
1,000 delegates. An adjoining five-storey building would contain 55,260 sq ft of office accommodation for around 225 staff from
Unite.
ISG has been appointed on a £50 million project to create a striking new home for the Faculty of Business and Law at UWE Bristol.
The landmark building is a key element of the University’s development masterplan at Frenchay Campus, occupying a strategic site
in the central heart zone, adjacent to the currently under construction student union and plaza facilities. Enabling the relocation
and significant expansion of facilities available to students on Business and Law courses at UWE Bristol, the new five-storey, 185,000
sq ft building includes collaborative space to further strengthen relationships between the university and wider business
community. Professional organisations will have a base in the new building and judges, accountants, small business owners and
start-ups will be able to mix with staff and students in specially designed social learning areas.
Construction work has begun on Scotland’s new £33m Sports Performance Centre, located at the Riccarton Campus at HeriotWatt University in Edinburgh. The facility will become the new training base for Scotland’s elite athletes and will support the high
performance needs for football, rugby and volleyball while offering additional dedicated support to athletics, badminton, basketball,
cricket, fencing, handball, hockey, netball, shinty and squash. The centre will include a full-sized indoor pitch with seating for 500,
international standard grass and synthetic outdoor pitches, a high performance strength and conditioning centre, a high
performance medical centre and hydrotherapy pool, fitness centres and studios and support services. There will also be a 12-court
sports hall with 300 spectator seating, a large public health club, restaurant and private dining areas and conferencing and meeting
spaces. Oriam is scheduled for completion in summer 2016. It is being funded in partnership by Heriot-Watt University, The Scottish
Government, Sportscotland and the City of Edinburgh Council.
City planners have given the green light for a £32m expansion of Cambridge Judge Business School. Contractor SDC Construction
will now sign the contract to deliver the ambitious expansion of what is one of Cambridge’s most famous old buildings. Building
work will take place at the rear of the existing Business School and includes demolition of an area of hostels. Work on a new 50,000
sq ft building designed by London-based architects Stanton Williams is expected to begin on the two-year project in June. Phase 1
of the expansion project has a current estimated cost of £32m, plus an additional £2m to fit the building out. A further proposed
expansion phase, known as Phase 2, would include a new below-ground development in the forecourt of the Grade II listed Old
Addenbrooke’s Hospital building that now houses much of the School.
Plans for a new £7 million ‘extra care’ facility that will boost the provision of housing for older people in Preston are set to be
approved by councillors next week. Specialist housing developer Mulbury Homes is planning to build 70 ‘extra care’ apartments,
aimed at the over 55s, on the site of the disused Manchester Mill in the St Matthews area of the city. The three-storey
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development will feature a mix of one and two-bedroom apartments, offering residents the independence of living in their own
home, but with the peace of mind and security of having care provision available on site. The apartments would offer access to a
number of communal facilities, including a café, dining room, assisted bathroom and laundry room. Mulbury Homes is currently in
advanced negotiations with a registered housing provider that will own and manage the homes, making them available for
affordable rent.
University College London Hospitals NHS Trust is inviting contractors to prequalify to deliver a new facility to combine the Royal
National Ear, Nose and Throat Hospital and the Eastman Dental Hospital onto a new site. The £50m redevelopment will be the
first health project to achieve BIM maturity level 3, and Sweett Group is playing an active role in developing BIM protocols. A new
100,000 sq ft facility, which will be arranged over 8 floors, will provide flexible diagnostic and day treatments for outpatients. RCPM
have been appointed to act as project managers on the project, which will be built on the former UCL student union site located on
Huntley Street, currently occupied by a four storey plus one basement level brick building. Steffian Bradley Architects have
designed the phase 5 project, which is expected to get underway next February and last two years.
Esh Border Construction has been brought in to finish a care home in Barrow after work was abruptly halted when incumbent
contractor GB Building collapsed. The £7m, 60-bed care home at Park View Gardens in Barrow for people with dementia will now
open at the end of the year.
Cambridge University is about to start prequalifying firms to deliver a new research building into degenerative diseases like
Parkinson and Alzheimer’s. Plans for a new Chemistry of Health Centre received the thumbs up from the UK Research Partnership
Investment Fund last week, who have approved the department’s full funding bid for £18m. Procurement chiefs at the University
have given firms until 13 April to prequalify for a two-stage contest with the aim of starting on site before the end of the year. The
Centre will be located on the south side of the existing building and will house the Centre for Protein Misfolding Diseases, a
Chemistry of Health Incubator, and the Molecular Production and Characterisation Centre.
UKTI ALERT
Estonia – Office furniture needed
Framework agreement for supplies of office furniture.This full online edition with links is available at:
http://www.businessopportunities.ukti.gov.uk/uktihome/item/876160.html
The Australian owner of Wet’n’Wild theme parks has teamed up with a Chinese investor to roll theme parks out across Asia.
Melbourne-based Village Roadshow announced on the Australian stock exchange last week that after two years of negotiations it
had signed an agreement with Chinese state-owned finance conglomerate CITIC. The deal will create a new fund management
business to invest in theme parks, entertainment facilities and related real estate development, with a particular focus on China.
Owned 51% by CITIC and 49% by a Village Roadshow subsidiary, the owners intend to launch the first fund, of $500m, later in 2015,
and further funds in the next few years. Village Roadshow, Australia’s largest theme park operator, along with CITIC, will commit to
invest up to 5%, or $25m, in the initial fund, with CITIC responsible for raising the remaining balance. The new venture has
identified a development opportunity in Chengdu, south-west China, which is already a world-famous tourist destination as the
home of China’s much-loved pandas. Other opportunities include southern China as well as Johor Bahru in Malaysia, and South
Korea. Village Roadshow is also a major movie producer - its hits have included The Matrix trilogy and The Lego Movie - as well as
film and DVD distributor and cinema operator. It has long-term relationships with a number of Hollywood studios and is currently
investigating and researching film-related theme park opportunities. It is also pursuing joint developments with SeaWorld
Entertainment in Asia.
Alila Hotels and Resorts will launch its second luxury resort development in Oman in Mirbat, east of Salalah – a coastal town in
the Dhofar governorate. The project, owned by Alil Salalah – a subsidiary of the Oman Investment Fund – will open in the second
half of 2017 comprising 100 bedrooms, 25 villas, fine dining restaurants and a Spa Alila wellness centre. The interior design by
BLINK Design Group will include contemporary Dhofari architecture. The new property will take advantage of a new international
airport, scheduled to open fully in April 2015, and the expansion of the Port of Salalah.
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