Stoford sells office suites and car park in Redditch

Dominic Stokes, director of Stoford

A collection of historic office buildings in Redditch town centre has been sold on behalf of leading commercial property developer Stoford.

Empire Court, in Prospect Hill, has been bought by clients of property agents KWB, which acted as joint letting agents with John Truslove.

As well as the sale of the Grade II-listed building that comprises 12 suites ranging in size from 556 sq ft to 3,800 sq ft and arranged around a courtyard, New Woods Securities – Stoford’s investment company – has also sold an adjacent 400-space car park.

Dominic Stokes, director of Stoford, said the company bought Empire Court and Prospect Hill car park in 1998 after it had built Prospect House and Osprey House in the town for AT&T.

The remaining land and listed buildings were retained and refurbished to provide workshop-style office buildings and have been fully let to numerous tenants such as Pertemps and Johnson Cars. Total annual income from both the offices and the car park was about £240,000.

“These are high quality office units, full of character and original features, and located within an historic building, so we knew Empire premises with an excellent yield potential,” he said.

Part of the 400-space car park, situated on four acres of land just outside Redditch town centre, was sold to Bromford Housing, while the remainder was bought by Nottingham-based property consultancy Inside Land.

Stoford is a leading specialist in warehouse and distribution development. It has delivered over 10 million sq ft of pre-let development and in 2012 to 2014 had more than 1.5 million sq ft of pre-let space under construction throughout the UK.