Delevopment bucks trend for doom and gloom
Graeme King
The Quay West office development in Sunderland is already 80% pre-sold with over £11m worth of sales booked by delevoper Adderstone Group.
The impressive number of sales, nearly a year ahead of completion, appears to shpw the property market in the North East is still moving, despite doom and gloom in the national press about the UK in general.
Adderstone acquired the former Austin Pickersgill shipyard on the River Wear two years ago, and has since brought forward the Quay West scheme of 'own-front-door' offices.
The project will deliver 48 units totalling 100,000sqft, selling at around £175 per sqft on a net area basis.
Adderstone managing director Ian Bagget said he was delighted with the popularity of his company's flagship scheme, and happy that it helped to demonstrate deals are still being done in the midst of negative opinion on the property market.
He said: "Undoubtedly people are exercising a bit of caution, but it's nowhere near as bad as the national press would have you believe.
"We have pre-let around 80% of this project, which is worth around £11.2m in off plan sales. Some units have been sold to a commercial property fund which was keen to buy into Sunderland. There have been a couple of owner occupiers, including Elliot Dent, the quantity surveyor which worked on the scheme for us, and the rest are local inestors."
Adderstone also has several other schemes in Newcastle and has recently secured a new £36m debt facility with Allied Irish Bank (GB) to fund its future development programme.
The company is on site at the top end of the Ouseburn valley with its Maling Court scheme, building 2,00sqft of offices, worth £2.5m. Adderstone is also in the midst of its scheme to convert the former BT telephone exchange in Jesmond into offices.