New building constitutes the third phase of development completed to date at the popular St Modwen Park development in Burton, Staffordshire. GMI Construction Group has announced the completion of a new 103,947 sq ft speculative distribution unit for leading logistics & industrial developer St Modwen in Burton One of the
A PLAN for a major new distribution centre in Belfast’s Titanic Quarter can go ahead, city planning officials have signalled. Titanic Quarter Ltd’s proposal would see full demolition of the existing industrial building on the site next to Queens Road, replacing it with a modern and larger 100,000 sq ft
The growing shift to online shopping by consumers is behind many of the recent well-publicised closures on the high street. But the trend is also bolstering tender opportunities in the industrial sector as new logistics and warehouse construction keeps growing to meet demand for distribution space. A recent trading update
Trebor Developments has appointed Sheffield based Construction Contractor J F Finnegan to construct Avion Plot 3C, Aero Centre, First Avenue, Finningley, Doncaster. Plot 3C Aero Centre, located at Doncaster Sheffield Airport, consists of the construction of two industrial/logistics units totaling approximately 105,111 sq ft, inclusive of first floor office accommodation.
The first phase of a giant warehousing complex geared for the needs of online shopping is taking shape at Ipswich, off the A14. The Great Blakenham scheme – described as groundbreaking – will be a warehouse and distribution complex which is set to break with traditional norms with its building
A project funded by AEW UK Investment Management, which has bought the site from Caddick Group in the stages to start construction. Wakefield 515, which will be speculatively built, marks the second phase of Crosspoint 33, an emerging warehouse & logistics hub by junction 33 of the M62 motorway. Caddick
Winvic is building two big warehouses for speculative logistics developer Panattoni at its Panattoni Park Luton site, next to the new junction 11A of the M1. The first shed, Luton 345 has a haunch height of 15 metres, and offers 345,000 sq ft of space and an additional 13,500 sq
MAG (Manchester Airports Group) has appointed McLaren to build a warehouse and logistics facility on the site of a former WWII aircraft hangar at Manchester Airport The design and build project, which will be known as ‘dnata City North’, incorporates the construction of a 145,000 sq ft warehouse and logistics
DP World London Gateway has secured multiple recognition from The Planet Mark for reducing its carbon footprint at its Thames-based trade-enabling hub. The integrated logistics hub secured two awards at The Planet Mark’s national awards last month, winning the Supply Chain Engagement and Carbon Reduction categories. The Planet Mark’s report,
Construction has started on a £60m logistics base for Europa Worldwide Group in Northamptonshire. The 715,000 sq ft development will be located at Midlands Logistics Park in Corby and is due to be completed in June 2020. The new facility will double Europa Warehouse’s logistics portfolio. Managing director Andrew Baxter said: “We’re delighted to
New building constitutes the third phase of development completed to date at the popular St Modwen Park development in Burton, Staffordshire. GMI Construction Group has announced the completion of a new 103,947 sq ft speculative distribution unit for leading logistics & industrial developer St Modwen in Burton One of the largest warehouse developments in the Midlands, St. Modwen Park Burton has outline consent for one million sq ft and is now home to a number of established occupiers, including Hellman Worldwide Logistics, Keylite Roof Windows, Supply Technologies and London City Bond. The unit, which includes 10 dock levellers (including 2 euro-docks), a 50m deep yard and Grade A office space, is the latest opportunity for businesses to join the popular scheme, which prominently fronts the A38 to the south of Burton-upon-Trent. The new unit could provide approximately 120 jobs once occupied, in addition to a significant number of construction jobs, which were created during the build by GMI Construction. Speaking about the project GMI Group Managing Director Andy Bruce said: “GMI is proud to have been trusted by St Modwen to deliver this important new building on time, on budget and to the highest possible standards – which is the promise we make on every project and our primary focus going forward. This project is the 4th logistics and industrial project we have been awarded and completed this year and further endorses our growing credentials in this sector”. Also commenting Rob Richardson, Senior Development Manager at St. Modwen Industrial & Logistics, said: “St. Modwen Park Burton is one of our key sites and a significant asset for the business. Our third phase of development expands the scheme’s offering, allowing us to meet market demand for quality, well-located space in the region. Our decision to speculatively build the 103,000 sq ft unit demonstrates our confidence both in the attractiveness of the scheme and in the wider industrial and logistics market.” For more information on St. Modwen Park Burton, please visit stmodwenlogistics.co.uk/property/st-modwen-park-burton/
A PLAN for a major new distribution centre in Belfast’s Titanic Quarter can go ahead, city planning officials have signalled. Titanic Quarter Ltd’s proposal would see full demolition of the existing industrial building on the site next to Queens Road, replacing it with a modern and larger 100,000 sq ft facility. Industry monitor Construction Information Services estimates the value of the project at just under £6 million. Most of the development (86,100 sq ft) will be dedicated to the new distribution warehouse, with another 7,000 sq ft set aside for a van storage centre. In a report prepared for Belfast City Council’s planning committee monthly meeting on Tuesday, 560 parking spaces will be provided on site. A total of 318 spaces will be specifically for delivery vans, with 161 set aside for drivers. Another 81 are earmarked for staff and visitors. That report recommends approval for the project. Titanic Quarter Ltd is a company set up to develop 161.5 acres within the Titanic Quarter ultimately owned by landlord Belfast Harbour Commissioners. It is one of a group of companies that makes up Titanic Property Development Ltd. The group has overseen around £425m of development projects to date, comprising around 1.5 million square feet. Its directors have valued the development land at £25.9m. The latest major development includes Olympic House on Queens Road. Enabling works on the £26.5m office building began in June. The most recent accounts for Titanic Property Development Ltd show it turned a pre-tax profit of £4.9m in the 12 months to December 31 2018, down on a pre-tax profit of £6.2m from 2017. Titanic Property Development Ltd’s ultimate controlling parties are the Entice Limited Partnership, owned by Irish businessman Dermot Desmond and Dockside Investments, which is owned by the family of Irish property developer Pat Doherty. The report states that both parent parties have confirmed they will not seek repayment of £26.3m of existing loans for the foreseeable future. Shareholder loans are subordinated to Danske Bank and Bottin Investments, which is also owned by Dermot Desmond. In 2017, Mr Desmond injected an additional £29m into the company. The Titanic group of companies also refinanced £75m worth of loans with Danske bank the same year.
The growing shift to online shopping by consumers is behind many of the recent well-publicised closures on the high street. But the trend is also bolstering tender opportunities in the industrial sector as new logistics and warehouse construction keeps growing to meet demand for distribution space. A recent trading update from Segro, one of the largest owners of logistics warehouses, suggests activity and tender opportunities in the sector remain brisk. The firm has seen a strong start to 2018 having secured a record £27 million of new rent in the first quarter and with occupational demand encouraging across all its markets, particularly driven by the growth of online retailing. Segro completed 146,500 sq m of new industrial construction projects in the first quarter. Moreover, the volume of new space either approved or with building projects under development across the group, stood at 1 million sq m at the end of March, up from 693, 900 sq m at the start of the year. Indeed, Glenigan’s Construction market analysis shows tenders are currently being invited on a £10 million Segro industrial building project in Newham, covering 4795 sqm and with work set to start in late 2018. £350 million development cap-ex Today, Segro’s development pipeline includes new pre-lets totalling 490,000 sq m, of which 270,000 sq m is to online retailers. At one key site, SEGRO Logistics Park East Midlands Gateway, the pre-lets include 122,000 sq m to a major online retailer and 60,000 sq m to a third-party logistics provider. Overall, Segro expects its development capital expenditure to exceed £350 million for 2018. Elsewhere, the go-ahead for a third runway at Heathrow Airport is likely to boost construction tender leads in the industrial sector further, as the growth of air cargo creates extra demand for warehouse space in the area. Segro, which owns significant portfolio around Heathrow, is well-placed to benefit. The potential for construction projects for the internet shopping sector has also been highlighted by the recent surge in the share price of Ocado, the pioneer in grocery deliveries, which is set to join the FTSE 100 this month. The outlook for the group which has a major facility at Andover and is set to open a new one at Erith in coming months, has brightened recently helped by a series of international partnerships. Tender opportunities Meanwhile, the outlook for tender opportunities across the industrial sector remains promising. Glenigan Construction market analysis shows that the value of underlying industrial construction starts rose by 19% last year and were up by 1% in the four months to April this year, compared to the period last year. The regional picture varies but activity looks particularly strong in key regions such as the East of England (where the value of starts is up 95% in January-April), London (up 24%) and the West Midlands (up 52%). A mark of confidence in the sector in the East of England is the start of construction work in recent weeks on two speculative logistics units covering 350,000 sq ft which are being developed by Jaynic at Suffolk Park, near Bury St Edmunds. Readie Construction is expected to complete the scheme by next November.
Trebor Developments has appointed Sheffield based Construction Contractor J F Finnegan to construct Avion Plot 3C, Aero Centre, First Avenue, Finningley, Doncaster. Plot 3C Aero Centre, located at Doncaster Sheffield Airport, consists of the construction of two industrial/logistics units totaling approximately 105,111 sq ft, inclusive of first floor office accommodation. Site preparation works are already underway and the project is scheduled for completion in June 2020. J F Finnegan are no strangers to working in this region having delivered the Concrete Sleeper Production Facility at Ten Pound Walk for Trackwork Moll Limited and Warehouse & Office Units at First Point Business Park for The Catesby Property Group. Dawa Singh, Head of Pre-Construction at J F Finnegan commented, “We are delighted to have secured this project and look forward to working with Trebor Developments. J F Finnegan has played a significant role in similar schemes within the South Yorkshire region for over 70 years.” Commenting on the appointment Mark Wright, Partner at Trebor Developments, added, “We are very pleased to make the appointment of J F Finnegan to construct our “Avion”, Aero Centre, project, which we are developing in conjunction with our partners, Hillwood. JF Finnegan has a first-class track record and we look forward to seeing these leading edge, high quality industrial/logistic buildings coming out of the ground in the New Year and be available for occupation in June 2020.”
The first phase of a giant warehousing complex geared for the needs of online shopping is taking shape at Ipswich, off the A14. The Great Blakenham scheme – described as groundbreaking – will be a warehouse and distribution complex which is set to break with traditional norms with its building design. Developer Curzon de Vere said the aim was of Port One Logistics Park is to give e-commerce operations warehousing and distribution facilities geared to their needs. It said most e-commerce activities were being conducted from centre designed and built for other purposes and many operators were experiencing inefficiencies and high costs as a result. With leases agreed and planning approval in place, Anglia Building Services Ltd has started work on the first phase of the 60-acre site, off the A14’s junction 52, which will result in three units being built within the next year. The first 143,000sq ft unit has been designed for Ipswich-based Chinese fulfilment house operator FDS Corporation Ltd. FDS general manager Sheng Li said: “The past three years has shown us how well our Suffolk location works for us and our growth has given us the confidence to look at a new facility.” Ports and logistics solutions specialist Murray Gibson Associates Ltd, who is providing architecture services, said it was an “exceptional” project, with the building designed from the inside out. “It is very rarely that you get the opportunity of a completely clean sheet of paper on which to design an operation that not only exceeds the client’s original brief, but also ticks so many of the desirable supply chain features that this site in particular offers,” said the firm’s owner Murray Gibson. “Having perfected the internal layout and process flows, it was literally a case of wrapping the building around it.” A fulfilment house differs from conventional warehouses in its use of the ‘cube’ of the building rather than just focusing on the floor area, he explained. “This three-dimensional approach has enabled us to achieve a density of over 32,000 pallets of storage, nine-high with semi-automated locating.” It is thought that around a fifth of UK consumer purchases will be made online by the end of 2019, and that will increase to around a quarter by 2023, with the UK leading Europe in its growing preference for online shopping. “Behind the scenes, nothing short of a mini-revolution has taken place, largely unseen, that ensures our online purchases arrive where we want them and when, leaving us to get on with our busy lives,” explained Mr Gibson. “By cutting out multiple distribution centres and stores and delivering direct to the consumer, retailing is now embedded in the processes that enable us to buy products on our computer, tablet or smart phone. Orders are picked, labelled and marshalled for dispatch by courier and delivery companies to our chosen destination, offering an ever-widening number of options to suit our individual lifestyles.” Other buildings of between 50,000 and 700,000sq ft are planned for the logistics park. They will follow similar design principles, with planning consent for building heights of more than 20 metres. Easy access to the east and westbound carriageways of the A14 are key feature of the site, which will be operational 24 hours a day, seven days a week. “Port One Logistics Park enters the market in exactly the right place and at the right time,” said Mr Gibson. “According to industry analysts Retail Economics, and demonstrated at this year’s United Kingdom Warehousing Association national conference, a further 44m sq ft of warehouse space needs to be built in the UK by the end of 2021 – just to meet the demands of the online retail sector.”
A project funded by AEW UK Investment Management, which has bought the site from Caddick Group in the stages to start construction. Wakefield 515, which will be speculatively built, marks the second phase of Crosspoint 33, an emerging warehouse & logistics hub by junction 33 of the M62 motorway. Caddick also built the first phase – a £100m 1.2m sq ft distribution centre now occupied by TJX Europe, parent company of retail brands TK Maxx and HomeSense. Myles Hartley, managing director at Caddick Developments, detailed thoughts on his company’s beds-and-sheds strategy. “As a group, our focus is on structurally-supported asset classes such as build-to-rent and industrial/logistics, where we see long-term growth potential,” he said. Caddick’s build-to-rent housing brand, Moda Living, opened its first development, Angel Gardens in central Manchester, last month. It is also due to start on-site with the first phase of its £300m SOYO neighbourhood in Leeds city centre, a 515-home BTR scheme that Caddick Construction will build for Moda Living.
Winvic is building two big warehouses for speculative logistics developer Panattoni at its Panattoni Park Luton site, next to the new junction 11A of the M1. The first shed, Luton 345 has a haunch height of 15 metres, and offers 345,000 sq ft of space and an additional 13,500 sq ft of offices over two floors. The second warehouse, Luton 69, is 13.1 metres high, has a 69,000 sq ft footprint and provides 7,700 sq ft of office space. Winvic will also be carrying out the associated civils and infrastructure work, including car and lorry parking. Both Luton 69 and Luton 345 are expected to be completed in December 2019. Winvic is also already working for Panattoni putting up warehouses at Derby Commercial Park and the East Midlands Distribution Centre. Winvic director Danny Nelson said: “Our relationship with Panattoni has gone from strength to strength, and starting another project together – over a short amount of time – illustrates how hard our whole company works to create robust bonds with clients. We are focused on meeting, and exceeding, expectations and are proud that our values help to position us as a trusted leader in the industrial sector.” James Watson, development director of Panattoni UK, said: “Having appointed Winvic on a number of occasions, we are confident their management and construction of this project will be of the highest standards. We are dedicated to providing only the best quality buildings in the best locations and Panattoni Park Luton fulfils these ambitions, in part due to Winvic’s vast experience in constructing first-rate, modern warehouse facilities.”
MAG (Manchester Airports Group) has appointed McLaren to build a warehouse and logistics facility on the site of a former WWII aircraft hangar at Manchester Airport The design and build project, which will be known as ‘dnata City North’, incorporates the construction of a 145,000 sq ft warehouse and logistics facility with a two-storey office space. Designed by architect RPS, dnata’s new warehouse and logistics facility will set a new benchmark for air cargo handling and warehousing. McLaren will manage the Cat B fit-out of 20,000 sq ft of dnata-branded office space and will oversee external drainage and landscaping works. During the design process, virtual reality technology was used to future-proof the building. The facility will include flexible office accommodation, providing a mixture of workspace and meeting facilities, as well as breakout spaces and a fitness suite. David Murphy, managing director of operations at McLaren, said: “By working closely with MAG Property, the property and development arm of MAG, and dnata at the earliest stage of this project, it became evident that attention to detail and strong management of construction schedules and logistics will be crucial to the success of this project. “By leveraging our close relationships with our supply chain partners and focusing on MAG’s specific business drivers, we have been able to develop an effective and robust plan for the design and build of dnata’s new logistics warehouse and office space.” Jonathan Haigh, MAG property’s managing director, added: “The scale of dnata’s ambition and longevity of commitment rightly called for our assembly of this prime site and for a suitably impressive scheme to fully exploit its potential. “From master planning to transaction execution, it’s been a great example of how we blend our airport operations knowledge with real estate development expertise and work hard and with skill for our customers.” dnata UK chief executive Gary Morgan, commented: “We’ve worked closely with MAG Property and the design team to ensure that dnata City North is able to adapt to the dynamic industry in which we operate, as well as providing our staff with a quality working environment.” Particularly well situated for ease of airfield access, the new warehouse and logistics facility will allow dnata to consolidate and grow its Manchester operations with the capacity to handle over 150,000 tonnes per annum. It will become operational in late summer 2020.
DP World London Gateway has secured multiple recognition from The Planet Mark for reducing its carbon footprint at its Thames-based trade-enabling hub. The integrated logistics hub secured two awards at The Planet Mark’s national awards last month, winning the Supply Chain Engagement and Carbon Reduction categories. The Planet Mark’s report, earlier this year, highlighted that DP World London Gateway Port has reduced its carbon emissions by 24.9% per TEU (twenty-foot equivalent unit container) from 2017 to 2018. Carbon reductions of 18% were also achieved during construction of the latest warehouse to open at its Logistics Park – a multi-temperature facility operated by CEVA Logistics – equating to 2,561 tonnes of carbon dioxide. As a result, both facilities received The Planet Mark accreditation – an internationally recognised and trusted sustainability certification acknowledging commitment to continuous improvement in sustainability. Such consideration to sustainability means that those businesses using DP World London Gateway can be assured that their supply chains are more environmentally friendly. Steve Malkin, CEO of Planet First and co-founder of The Planet Mark, said: “We’ve been working with DP World London Gateway for several years now and it is encouraging that, despite being a rapidly growing business, their carbon emissions are continuing to reduce. I have been continually impressed by their commitment to operating in the most environmentally possible way, and by the innovative ways that they have worked to achieve this. From using hybrid and electric vehicles to ensuring that their operations are planned in such a way that vehicles that do use diesel travel the least possible distance. The business provides a strong example of how to operate a leaner – and therefore cleaner – supply chain.” DP World London Gateway was intentionally designed to offer shippers a highly flexible opportunity to consolidate and sort products for onward distribution at its logistics park just a few hundred yards from the quay side, significantly reducing the number of trucks on the road and lowering carbon emissions. Ernst Schulze, UK Chief Executive Officer, DP World, said: “As a global trade enabler, we know that our operations have a wide-reaching impact on people and on the planet, that extends beyond ensuring that people have the things that they need, when they need them. That is why we’re committed to intentional change and operating a sustainable business to minimise social and environmental impacts, today and in the future. Partnering with Planet Mark™ to reduce carbon emissions across our operations at DP World London Gateway is part of how we achieve this and hold ourselves accountable. I am proud of our latest accreditations and awards with The Planet Mark. It proves we can offer our customers the assurance that by partnering with us their supply chains are more sustainable.” Source: DP World London Gateway
Construction has started on a £60m logistics base for Europa Worldwide Group in Northamptonshire. The 715,000 sq ft development will be located at Midlands Logistics Park in Corby and is due to be completed in June 2020. The new facility will double Europa Warehouse’s logistics portfolio. Managing director Andrew Baxter said: “We’re delighted to announce this huge investment in our logistics operation at a time of massive growth at Europa. “This is the single biggest investment we have ever made since I acquired the business in 2013 and it demonstrates our ambition to strengthen our 3PL operation at a time of huge market growth particularly for e-commerce Logistics.” Midlands Logistics Park in Corby has created 2,200 local jobs since 2015. It is built on the site of a former British Steel quarry, latterly Stanion Plantationm and covers 150 acres. The development has been agreed with Corby Land and Development Ltd, a joint venture between Mulberry Developments and Frogmore who will also develop out the facility. The main contractor is VolkerFitzpatrick. Europa is being supported by the team at Budworth Hardcastle (Property Consultants).