£40 million Triple Coup

Stoford has secured a £40million ‘quick turnaround’ to develop more than 625,000sq ft of warehousing and distribution facilities on 36 acres of prime land in the East Midlands and Yorkshire.

The Birmingham-based design and build specialist has received planning permission for schemes near major motorway hubs and with huge local employment potential in Measham and Sunningdale Park in Leicestershire as well as for a 13acre site off J6 of the M18 at Thorne, East Yorkshire.

Purchased through a competitive bid process, the Thorne site is one of Yorkshire’s main distribution hot spots and was acquired from the Royal Bank of Scotland.

Two units of 140,000sq ft and 80,000sq ft being speculatively developed with completion scheduled for Spring 2008 have already been forward sold to PRUPIM for £13million.

PRUPIM has also agreed an £8million deal for a spec-build 140,000sq ft unit on the 10acre Measham site which Stoford secured off market from Leicestershire County Council for just £200,000 per acre.

Stoford was involved in detailed negotiations with both Leicester City Council and Sport England to secure planning consent on the former sports field site at Sunningdale Park and contributed a six-figure sum towards creating new local sports facilities.

Stoford Director, Dan Gallagher added: "There are very few sites such as this in Leicester so it is a unique opportunity to develop a piece of prime land and create new jobs."

The 13acre site was owned by Black Rock – formerly Merrill Lynch – and could accommodate a single building of up to 265,000sq ft.

"It is ideally located close to junction 21A of the M1 and could have an end value in excess of £20million.

"These sites are highly sought after particularly by logistics companies who can benefit from both location and local labour resource," he added.

Measham, Sunningdale Park and Thorne significantly boost Stoford’s increasing development portfolio of warehouse and distribution facilities which in 2006 exceeded 3million sq ft.