Oxfordshire and London based R&D Tech company Arrival Ltd has taken a new 120,600 sq ft manufacturing facility at Link 9 Bicester from landlord’s RDI REIT Plc.
Arrival Ltd, whose mission is to make electric vehicles mainstream and drive the adoption of sustainable technologies, is focused on the production of lightweight commercial vehicles and has already achieved “unicorn” status, now valued at over £3 billion. Founded in 2015 by Denis Sverdlov, Arrival is headquartered in London with an R&D facility in Banbury, Oxfordshire with further offices in North America, Germany, Israel, Russia and Netherlands.
Arrival has already trialled electric vehicle prototypes with a wide range of companies including Royal Mail, DHL and DPD, as well as BT and has already received an investment and order for 10,000 vehicles from logistics giant, UPS. The company recently secured a £90m investment from South Korean car firms Hyundai and Kia to fund the next stage of its development. Arrival is expanding its UK and global workforce from 600 people in September to 800 with Arrival’s automotive micro-factory manufacturing plant at Link 9 Bicester operational in 2021.
Glenn Saint, Chief of Commercial Vehicles of Arrival says: “Arrival is revolutionising electric vehicles with our Generation 2 solution that means customers can buy a purpose built electric vehicle for the same price or less than a petrol or diesel equivalent. Critical to making this possible is manufacturing in micro factories which can serve the local community and respond rapidly to local demand.”
Chris White MD, White Commercial Letting and Management agents at Link 9 commented “This is yet more excellent news for the expanding economy of Oxfordshire situated in the heart of the world renowned Motorsport and automotive technology Cluster centred around Oxfordshire and Northamptonshire. The huge structural change in automotive development created by the change to a more sustainable and efficient energy source is already seeing an influx of Companies into the region looking to benefit from the automotive technology and manufacturing specialisms already present in the region.
RDI’s building one of the very few available quality buildings in the south east was an obvious opportunity for the company. RDI have also just completed another 168,000 sq ft unit adjacent available to lease and one of the final available buildings on the Link 9 Business Park”.
Link 9 Bicester is a major new distribution and production development, of 40 acres located a short distance from Junction 9 of the M40. The site comprises two units of high specification headquarters buildings which were speculatively developed by Albion Land.
Adrian Horsburgh of RDI REIT says “The quality of this latest letting at Link 9 validates our conviction in the estate and its location when we pushed forward with funding this speculative scheme almost 18 months ago. The South East industrial market remains buoyant, underpinned by strong structural support and attractive rental growth prospects against a backdrop of undersupply, leaving us confident in our ability to attract a final tenant to our Bicester estate.”
Unit 1B, comprising 168,058 sq ft, has just completed and is now ready for occupation available at a quoting rent of £7.25 per sq ft. White Commercial, VSL and Colliers International are all marketing the remaining unit.
