Stephen Salloway, Managing Director of Derby based Salloway Property Consultants gives an insight in to the time and effort that goes into generating development activity – often the product of long standing advice and relationships.
It is extremely satisfying to see developments in which you have invested significant professional capital start to come to fruition. Commercial property activity is by its very nature ‘lumpy’. To the passive observer, market activity can sometimes seem limited but that is often when our work as professional advisors is most intense and demanding.
Emergence from recession means that we are seeing more development activity. The commencement of construction on the new 118,000 sq.ft speculative warehouse at Dove Valley Park is a clear example of renewed activity on the established business park but this is just the next phase in the delivery of the Dove Valley Park project. We have advised our clients Conder Developments for over two decades during which time we have sold or let over a million square feet of buildings with the likes of JCB, Dairy Crest, K&N, FI UK and Truma all benefiting from DVP’s A50 location.
Development is a ‘slow burner’. Pride Park, Deby’s best known and arguably most successful business Park, is still under development and is now over twenty years old. Given the length of time these ventures can span, it is heartwarming to see the current crop of good quality developments reaching the market, a depth of quality product that perhaps we haven’t seen the like of for 10 years.
The emergence of a new industrial development at the former Draka site on Alfreton Road, known as Eagle Park, is no trick of light. Ivygrove Developments ability to offer a range of new industrial, warehouse and trade counter space is the product of a close working relationship with our client where we provided professional assistance in opportunity selection, vision, planning and diplomacy to achieve a viable planning permission on a difficult brown field site.
When you look at the significant infrastructure needed to ‘kick start’ some schemes, Infinity Park Derby being a perfect case in point, it is rewarding to remember that the these often barren plots of land will, through our clients’ tenacity and our professional support will provide a generation of economic activity creating jobs for years to come.
I don’t have to look far to see what the impact of long standing advice and relationships can offer. 8 years ago Revelan’s Victory Park was a redundant wasteland; it is now a whisker away from completion as a modern, high quality industrial park providing and 100’s of jobs.
Ivygrove’s Westside Park is another example of site that has emerged from an economically sterile state to become a vibrant business park which provides opportunity for companies like SGS Engineering and EPM to meet there expanding needs. Similarly, Sawley Park on Nottingham Road, which was designed specifically to meet a pocket of demand from small businesses, is another example where our partnership has delivered success, in this case through the period of recession.
Despite the long lead-in time associated with commercial property development it is of the utmost importance to remain flexible and continually strive to meet the often changing demands of the market. This is where I believe we have honed our skills to support our client developer and add value in the important pre-development process which helps to deliver a successful scheme and is perhaps the reason why Salloway Property Consultants is interwoven with Derby’s commercial property fabric.
Long standing relationships build trust and confidence in expertise you provide and ultimately generates space which we are in the business of disposing and acquiring. We are delighted to see that our efforts are playing a part in the new wave of development activity.
