London & Cambridge Properties (LCP), the leading West Midlands based property and development company, has announced plans to increase warehousing and industrial space by 260,000 sq ft on its flagship business estate.
LCP has submitted plans to Dudley MBC for phase 1, totalling 130,000 sq ft of speculative development on The Pensnett Estate, Kingswinford, which would provide four blocks of units on land to the rear of its headquarters on First Avenue.
The estate is one of the largest secure business estates in Europe, and home to 170 businesses in over 2.4 million sq.ft of commercial property. If the authority’s planning committee gives the development the go ahead, work could start as early as Q4 2016, with an anticipated completion date of late 2017.
Andrew Preston, industrial portfolio manager at LCP, said “this substantial investment would enable businesses looking for industrial or warehouse units of 10,000 sq ft and above to move into premium buildings on an established, secure estate.“
“We have decided to press ahead with phase 1 of this speculative development due to void levels being so low on the estate, and enquiries for businesses looking to relocate onto the estate being encouragingly high,” he said.
The Black Country Local Enterprise Partnership (BCLEP) has been supporting LCP with this development, having already received Site Investigation Funding. Both parties are now working together to obtain next stage gap funding to bring the site to market. Ultimately meeting the need of the Black Country employment and business space growth plans by attracting new businesses and investment to the area.
It will be the second recent speculative development that the company has built on the industrial estate, which is one of the biggest in Europe, in recent years.
Two years ago, it opened the £1.5 million Progress Point, an industrial and warehouse development comprising 21,000 sq ft of high quality warehouse and industrial space.