St. Modwen secured in excess of £70 million of sales for land, warehousing and retail units in the Midlands during 2012, in addition to letting more than 1.1 million sq ft of space.
Sales of built space totalled 218,480 sq ft and included two 85,000 sq ft food stores to Tesco and Sainsbury’s at St. Modwen’s multi-million pound regeneration schemes at Hednesford and Longbridge respectively. A 1.2 acre plot of land was also sold to Green King for a public house / restaurant at the Goodyear regeneration site in Wolverhampton.
Major industrial lettings included 200,000 sq ft to CML Fulfilment & Logistics at Brockton Business Park in Telford, 175,000 sq ft to logistics company Ascott Transport Ltd at Hilton Business Park, Derbyshire, and 75,000 sq ft to health and beauty business DCS Europe at Long Marston Business Park, Stratford on Avon.
St. Modwen transacted on more than 20 office lettings at the Innovation Centre, the specialist business environment for technology enterprises at Longbridge, with new tenants including surgical product specialist Surgi C and business intelligence software provider neutrinoBI.
Retail lettings were secured with household names including Pets Corner, Costa Coffee and Lloyds Pharmacy at Hednesford town centre and Premier Inn at Longbridge.
John Dodds, St. Modwen’s Midlands Regional Director, said: “Despite the challenging market we saw pleasing demand for space in all sectors from a wide range of high profile customers last year, with rent levels remaining robust.
“Deals secured on industrial space means that our stock is quickly running out and we are dealing with increasing amount of enquiries regarding design and build solutions.”
St. Modwen has several industrial sites where outline planning consent and infrastructure are already in place – giving the company a head start to take advantage of the growing demand for design and build opportunities arising from a decreasing supply of stock.
The company has outline planning permission and is ready to start building at Great Western Business Park, Longbridge, Coventry, Barton near Burton upon Trent, Hilton, Swadlincote, Worcester and Washwood Heath.
