Ellesmere Port speculative scheme secures funding
Caddick Construction and developer Redsun have started work on the 125,000 sq ft project at Hooton Park after securing £7m from the North West Evergreen Fund and the Cheshire & Warrington LEP.
The developer secured planning consent for the scheme, dubbed Aviator, in July last year; this includes two buildings of 325,000 sq ft and 125,000 sq ft.
The latter will now be developed speculatively and is due to complete in January 2020 after securing development funding. The Evergreen Fund has provided a £5m development loan to Redsun, while the LEP has backed Redsun with £1.7m through the Cheshire Science Corridor Enterprise Zone.
Knight Frank and Legat Owen are the retained agents for Aviator, and the design team includes Quartz Projects Services, Fletcher Rae Architects, Muir Associates and Crookes Walker Consulting.
CBRE manages the North West Evergreen Fund; the company’s senior director of investment advisory Will Church said: “Despite underlying concerns relating to the economy, we are seeing more applications to the Evergreen Fund than ever before with developers still showing appetite to invest into good schemes.
“The delivery of this scheme will create jobs and important industrial space in a market where speculative development finance remains scarce.”
Nick Wightman of Redsun added: “There is a distinct lack of good quality industrial buildings in this part of the region. Our site is a two-minute drive from the motorway network and has Enterprise Zone status, meaning occupiers can benefit from very attractive capital allowances against their fit-out and machinery costs. This is the right time to bring this product to the market and we expect there to be strong occupier interest”.
