Salmon Harvester Properties and NFU Mutual have completed the letting programme on the offices at 2 Glass Wharf, Bristol, with the entire second floor, comprising 16,800 sq ft, being taken by professional services firm Grant Thornton UK.
Tim Lincoln, South West Practice Lead for Grant Thornton, said: “We are very pleased and excited to be moving to Glass Wharf in early 2018. We will be able to create a modern and agile space for around 185 people and the ability to design a working environment that caters for more collaboration and different ways in which our people work in the office was a strong selling point. We intend to adopt a true agile working approach and we are designing a space which we know will impress our people and our clients”.
NFU Mutual’s Fund Manager Tom Bostock said: “ We took the decision to speculatively fund this new office development on 2013 at a time when the Bristol city centre grade A office supply was low and reducing , in spite of two referendums and a general election I am pleased to say we have achieved our project business plan of strong lettings to proven covenants and I expect the Bristol office market to continue to perform well in the future”.
Rorie Henderson, director at Salmon Harvester, said: “ Our recent investment programme in Bristol City Centre has proven to be a successful one , we acquired three development sites from Castlemore’s Receiver between 2012 and 2014 developing 2 Glass Wharf as a 98,000 sq ft speculative office scheme and then pre-let its neighbour 3 Glass Wharf 110,000 sq ft office HQ to HMRC where we are on site and on programme to complete in Q4 2017.”
Hannah Waterhouse, director at JLL in Bristol, said: “This move to 2 Glass Wharf is an opportunity for Grant Thornton to implement modern, agile ways of working; a trend that we are increasingly seeing in Bristol among forward-thinking professional services businesses. Flexible workspaces help to create a healthy and collaborative business environment that is fit for purpose in the rapidly-changing, highly-connected world that we live in.”
Salmon Harvester completed the £50m speculative, six-storey, 98,000 sq ft office development in 2016. The scheme was funded by NFUMutual and lettings to PwC, Foot Antsey, Grant Thornton UK and Arcadis have been secured. The leases are generally 10-15 year terms at rents of between £28 per sq ft – £29.50 per sq ft.
Alder King and Hoddle Stotesbury Morgan acted for Salmon Harvester, and JLL acted for Grant Thornton.
