A joint venture between TriOffice and Pears Group has bought the freehold to 55 Spring Gardens in Manchester.
TriOffice is the office investment arm of Tri7 Group set up in September this year. The deal marks the subsidiary’s first entry into the market.
Aviva Investors brought the 55,385 sq ft prime office building to market in May. Offers over £15.3m were sought but market sources have indicated the office was sold north of £13m.
According to Radius, Aviva acquired the building from a CBRE Global Investors’ fund in 2017 for £20.5m.
The workspace is arranged across ground and nine upper floors. It is multi-let to tenants including Clarke Willmott, SysGroup and CAF Rail, off a low average passing rent of £28.86 per sq ft, offering reversionary potential.
TriOffice and Pears will embark on a rolling refurbishment and asset management programme on 55 Spring Gardens, with the expectation that there will be a capital market recovery for amenitised, regional offices over the next five years.
Samuel Castle, founding partner at Tri7, said: “We set up TriOffice last month to capitalise on value-add opportunities within the office sector. We believe that the scarcity of high-quality office stock, combined with the occupational resilience that has been witnessed in the major regional office markets, will lead to strong performance for those who upgrade and reposition prime-located office stock at this point in the cycle.
“For an opportunistic and agile investor like Tri7, we believe now is the right time to deploy capital into the sector and 55 Spring Gardens is an example of the type of schemes we’re looking at across the UK.”
Knight Frank advised the vendor.
Send feedback to Evelina Grecenko
Follow Estates Gazette
