Commercial property consultants Hellier Langston take a look at the state of the South Coast trade counter market:
The Trade Park market has recovered well over past 12 months. The national trade occupiers like Toolstation, Benchmarx, Tile Giant, City Plumbing, Wickes and Travis Perkins Builders Merchant (and all part of the Travis Perkins Group) along with Screwfix, Eurocell, Formula One, Howdens, Yesss Electrical, HiQ, Wolseley, HSS and Rexel Group have all been active in the area, either relocating, consolidating or filling in locations which they haven’t previously had a presence.
The South Coast has a number of prime trade park estates such as Winchester Trade Park and Hedge End Trade Park. Both these are surrounded by A1 food and non-food retail and are achieving on average £13.50 sq. ft. and £15.00 sq. ft. respectively.
Prior to the start of 2015 the standard trade parks with good main road frontage onto a busy A road were achieving rents in the region of £7.50 sq. ft. to £8.50 sq. ft. depending on the tenant mix and quality of the units. However with confidence in the economy improving and occupier demand for space increasing, particularly from national operators, rental levels are now above pre-recession levels and incentive packages are decreasing.
Hellier Langston has just let Unit 3 Stanstead Road Trade Park, Eastleigh (as pictured). The lease to the existing tenant Dorsey was surrendered and HSS Hire has taken a new 10 year lease without a break clause at £9.50 sq. ft.
On the Wykeham Trade Park in Winchester we are quoting £10 per sq. ft. and have received good level of interest. We hope to have this unit under offer by Christmas, creating an improved rental tone on the estate.
Hellier Langston is also marketing Units 6 & 10 on the Southampton Trade Park, Third Avenue, Southampton. The estate is highly visible and close to the bottom of the M271. Unit 6 is 3,105 sq. ft. and Unit 10 is 6,263 sq. ft. Each unit benefits from a trade counter consent allowing for 30% of the floor area or a maximum of 1,615 sq. to be used as a trade counter or showroom. We are currently quoting £10 sq. ft.
Going forward, we believe that the trend towards rental growth will continue, particularly for the more ‘standard trade parks’ where rental levels have until recently remained pegged at similar levels to industrial and warehouse units through the recession.
We now expect trade parks to continue to demand a rental premium of £2 to £3 sq. ft. in excess of standard industrial rental stock.
