Derwent Group sells Manchester office block for £11m

Cardinal House, which overlooks Parsonage Gardens, has a new owner – Sensible Properties.

The 55,700 sq ft office building sits on a nearly half-acre site included within Manchester City Council’s St Mary’s Parsonage Strategic Regeneration Framework. Accordingly, Cardinal House could be in line for either a refurbishment and extension or for demolition.

If demolished, it could be replaced with a 140,000 sq ft commercial block, according to marketing documents. All of these options would be subject to planning permission, of course.

The eight-storey Cardinal House was built in 1963. Currently, the building has only one tenant – Barings, which occupies 24,700 sq ft.

Derwent Group offloaded the site on behalf of Albert Gubay Charitable Foundation, whose property portfolio Derwent Group manages. That portfolio comprises 3m sq ft of office, leisure, retail, and industrial space across the country.

With a £11m deal, Cardinal House was sold for around £1.5m less than what Albert Gubay Charitable Foundation spent to acquire it in 2016. At that time, it was reported that the building was sold for around the guide price of £12.5m.

When the foundation put Cardinal House on the market last year, it was seeking offers of at least £13.5m.

Jonathan Black, property director at Derwent Group, described the charity’s reason for selling.

“Cardinal House has performed well for the charity since acquisition as an income-producing asset,” he said.

“The building has been positioned as a future redevelopment opportunity as part of the wider St Mary’s Parsonage Strategic Regeneration Framework, which no longer aligns with the trustees’ current investment criteria and appetite for risk, so the decision has been made to divest from this asset and redeploy the capital,” he said.

Avison Young acted for Derwent Group on the deal. Sensible Properties was unrepresented.

Sensible Properties is a relatively new property company, having only been incorporated in April. Its leadership consists of director George Jones.