A West Midland property developer has unveiled exciting plans to transform an industrial wasteland into a major new employment site on the M42 corridor.
St Francis Group is developing the former Redditch Tubes site on Old Forge Road for a range of new industrial warehouse units totaling nearly 400,000 sq ft on a 20-acre site close to Junction 2 M42.
Development director Gareth Williams said “The site was acquired in May of this year. Ground works began almost immediately and will be complete in time for Christmas. That means that construction could start very early in 2017 with new units available for occupation by the Autumn of that year.”
“There is a large and established manufacturing and logistics sector in Redditch with well-known businesses including Lear Corporation, Pilkington, Halfords, Toolstation and Heller. The site is also close to several major JLR sites, so we’d expect strong interest from companies in their supply chains as well as other logistics and distribution operators.
“With so little available stock in the local area, it’s great to finally be able to bring forward such a well located site that can so quickly meet the requirements of occupiers struggling to find suitable new space.”
St Francis, which is based in Henley-in-Arden, has been owning, managing and developing sites across the country since 1973, typically for residential or commercial uses, and often on brownfield land.
Letting agents for the scheme is the industrial agency team at JLL’s Birmingham office, where director Carl Durrant says the land is the largest readily available development opportunity south of Birmingham on the M42.
“Redditch has few voids and demand within the area for good quality industrial buildings is strong. We are confident that the site will attract interest from not only local occupiers looking to stay in the area, but also companies looking to relocate to the area.
“We expect to quickly establish a strong dialogue with local occupiers looking for good quality space in the 35,000 sq ft to 150,000 sq ft range”
Gareth Williams added: “This site is typical of the type of opportunity we are targeting and compliments our other development activities elsewhere where strong occupier demand and poor levels of stock challenge companies that are either consolidating or expanding.”
