Property developer Quartermile Developments has announced that European coffee house Caffè Nero and Italian wine café Veeno will open at its flagship mixed-use Edinburgh city centre development, Quartermile.
These latest lettings bookend a very successful 2016 for the developer. Earlier this year, Quartermile Developments announced a double record £80m turnover and pre-tax profits of almost £19m for the 12-month period to December 31, 2015.
Caffè Nero will occupy a 1,960 sq ft unit and Veeno has taken a 1,440 sq ft space, both of which are located alongside the development’s thriving Lister Square at the heart of Quartermile. Caffè Nero and Veeno are expected to open for business in early 2017.
Quartermile Developments is based within Quartermile, occupying offices at 2 Lister Square. The company is led by Managing Director, Paul Curran, who became chairman of the Scottish Property Federation in November.
The success of the 2015 financial year was underpinned by a combination of consistent strong residential sales and Quartermile Developments securing Edinburgh’s two largest consecutive open market pre-lets for ten years with back-to-back deals within its £52m Quartermile 4 office building. These comprised 58,567 sq ft to FanDuel and 70,033 sq ft to Cirrus Logic.
In addition, the University of Edinburgh acquired the Category A-listed Surgical Hospital building in December last year. The building will provide a home for its new interdisciplinary hub that will unite business and public policy to address societal and environmental challenges.
Quartermile Developments’ outstanding achievements were recognised this November at the UK housebuilding industry Oscars, The WhatHouse? Awards, when the company won gold in the best mixed-use development category. Quartermile is the first development in the awards’ 35-year history to win the category’s gold award three times. It previously won the top accolade in 2010 and 2014.
Paul Curran said: “Last year was one of extraordinary success. It reinforced Quartermile’s reputation as Edinburgh’s prime residential and commercial location and led to us being recognised for a record third time as the UK’s best mixed use development.
“We have worked hard to ensure that the development has its own sense of place and purpose so it is immensely satisfying to see our vision being fully realised.
“It is testament to our team that Quartermile is well known regionally, nationally and internationally. They have worked incredibly hard to ensure our brand, both as a location and a development company, is synonymous with excellence, expertise and enterprise.”
The success has continued during 2016 with strong residential sales. Construction also started this year on Quartermile 3, the final office building at the development, and is progressing at pace. Currently the only speculative Grade A office development underway in Edinburgh, the £35m six-storey building will provide a further 72,991 sq ft of Grade A office accommodation and is scheduled to be finished in the fourth quarter of 2017.
Paul continued: “We have maintained our momentum over the course of the past 11 months. This is evidenced by achieving record sales from plan, selling out the last three buildings in advance of practical completion and our lettings to Caffè Nero and Veeno as we approach the end of the year.
“We remain very positive about the future thanks to Quartermile being firmly established as Edinburgh’s highest profile commercial and residential location, the city’s enduring global appeal and the excellence of our product.”
Quartermile is expected to be completed in 2018. When finished, the development will provide Edinburgh with over 1,000 apartments – of which more than 650 are already occupied and another 176 under construction – along with 370,000 sq ft of Grade A office accommodation, 65,000 sq ft of retail and leisure space and seven acres of open landscaping.
Looking ahead to Quartermile Developments’ future, Paul said: “Due to the success of Quartermile, and the ability we have shown as a development team to consistently deliver, we have a number of future projects that we are now progressing.
“We are actively pursuing a number of high profile development opportunities within Scotland, some of which are purely residential whilst others are mixed-use. In addition, we are also actively looking for sites which we believe have the required combination of location and potential for us to develop. We’re hoping to make announcements regarding our next projects in the near future.”
