Paragon opens Manchester office

Paragon, an independent London-based building and project consultancy, has established a Manchester office to service its Northern clients.

James Onions and Rob Simpson have both left Colliers International to join as directors in the new office. Onions spent 13 years at Colliers and has been head of its Manchester and Leeds building surveying and project management teams since 2011. Simpson was based in Colliers' Leeds office for the past 11 years.

Paragon already has a track record in the North West, working on numerous acquisitions for clients such as Rockspring, LJ Capital, Magnus, Karlin and LaSalle. Paragon is also retained by Legal & General at the New Bailey office development.

John Munday, managing director of Paragon, said: "This new office is an exciting venture for us. Having established a successful nationwide business from London, we were keen to supplement this in the North and whilst we considered a number of cities, Manchester was the obvious choice for us as it is a powerful city competing on an international platform. The Manchester office is very much an integral part of the business as a whole, with the full support of the London team. We have an ambitious but viable strategy to grow the business exponentially over the next 12-24 months."

Onions said: "This is an incredibly exciting and unique opportunity for us to establish a new office for Paragon at the centre of the new Northern Powerhouse and build a team of the best talent and expertise in our field. Paragon is an enormously enthusiastic, dynamic company run by people who know and understand our line of work, with a focused client approach. They offer a service level that resonates with our own business beliefs. We are very excited about this new venture and look forward to the challenges ahead."