Only two years after completing the first phase of refurbishment at Black Country House in Oldbury, Goold Estates are celebrating having let the whole office building following recent lettings to Orion Media and Otis.
Orion Media, owners of Free Radio, Gem106 and Free Radio80’s, have taken 1,500 sq ft of ground floor accommodation on a 10 year lease with a break at the 5th year whilst Otis, the world’s largest manufacturer of lifts, escalators and moving walkways, are moving into 3,500 sq ft on the same lease term.
Dominic Goold, Managing Director of Goold Estates Ltd, explained: “Our first letting to Crowe Clark Whitehall was crucial and was the catalyst to finding other occupiers. We spent £1.75 million on the comprehensive refurbishment of the façade, reception area, common parts, new lifts and the second floor office area. Since then we have secured lettings to Defence Security Systems, Prospect Services, Cygnia Technologies and finally these latest two lettings.”
“We purchased the building in the early years of this recession. There were many raised eyebrows at the time but our faith has been vindicated and a two year turnaround is better than we could have expected even when the market was better. We’re now looking for new opportunities be it offices or industrial in the Midlands area. We buy poorly performing secondary properties and with a proactive approach to refurbishment and a hands-on management style with existing tenants we fill voids and improve the rental tone on all of our purchases. The deal with Otis was a perfect example, moving them from poor quality, low rent space on the lower ground floor into refurbished ground floor offices.”
Phil Riley, Chief Executive of Orion media Ltd, added: “We have created a new broadcasting studio at Black Country House having relocated from our current premises in Wolverhampton. Our property advisors GVA and ourselves found Dominic extremely straightforward to deal with making the whole process particularly simple.”
Goold Estates have already put the elements in place for further expansion of their property portfolio having taken on an Operations Director, Anthony Williams who was previously head of property management at MCD Developments Ltd. Anthony now runs Goold Estates on a day to day basis whilst Dominic has taken on a more strategic role and is looking for more properties to buy.
Dominic concludes:“ Goold Estates now owns and manages over 300,000 sq ft of office, industrial, warehouse and retail space across the Midlands. We only have voids of approximately 2.5% and have grown the rent roll by 30%. In the early days we were very lucky to form a joint venture with St. Modwen with whom we are now undertaking a major retail scheme in St Matthew’s Quarter, Walsall. They have been great partners and we have learnt a lot from working with them and their professional teams. We have also been well supported by Handelsbanken.”
We try and keep things simple by making sure that tenants are well looked after and that no opportunities are missed. We even moved out of our own offices to accommodate an expanding existing tenant and moved to our current premises at 17, Lichfield Street in the centre of Walsall which we had refurbished. Only one floor now remains vacant. I am now looking forward to being able to expand our property portfolio.”
