The next big signing The JD Sports deal could be the catalyst that kicks off Kingsway Business Park, but when will it be completed? By Geoff Hadwick
It is 14 months since The Kingsway Partnership, the backer of Rochdale’s giant 420-acre Kingsway Business Park, was granted consent to build a warehouse for JD Sports. Yet, despite a slew of other deals at the park (see box), agents are still waiting for the deal to be signed.
The partnership, which is made up of Wilson Bowden and the Northwest Regional Development Agency, and supported by Rochdale Development Agency and Rochdale borough council, is keeping its fingers crossed and its lips sealed.
In January 2009, planning permission was granted for a 616,000 sq ft warehouse with 250,000 sq ft of mezzanine space for storage and assembly purposes for the sportwear retailer.
If the deal does go ahead, it will be the largest warehouse to be developed in the North West since Royal London Asset Management’s Pioneer Point at Ellesmere Port was completed in 2005.
But no one is panicking; far from it.
Andrew Aherne, head of industrial at Lambert Smith Hampton in Manchester, says: “Personally, I am pretty certain that the JD Sports deal is going to happen later this year. It is just a question of funding now – everything else is in place.”
Aherne believes that the deal would be the catalyst the North West industrial market has been waiting for. “Values have bottomed out, some very big occupiers out there know that the time has come to make a move, and now all we need is for someone to make a move,” he says. “The JD Sports deal will be a big, positive story when it happens. It can only help to improve confidence.”
King Sturge industrial partner Steven Johnson agrees. “The only thing that has been holding back deals is the downturn in the market,” he says. “Everything at Kingsway is in place and ready to go. We need a deal like this to go ahead because the recovery is soft. It would give the regional recovery backbone and pace.”
The Kingsway Partnership remains equally upbeat. Wilson Bowden development director Robert Grafton says that he is “feeling very positive”. Several huge spoil heaps of earth that were stored there have recently disappeared, so does this mean progress?
Grafton does not want to be drawn into details, and nor does JD Sports. “I am always hopeful,” says Grafton, smiling.
RDA chief executive John Hudson says: “I am really starting to feel very confident. We are now where we always wanted to be. Kingsway is not like a sealed-off industrial estate. We are making it into a proper place.”
If they seem pleased with what, to some, might seem like slow progress, it is because the project has been through a difficult journey.
Over the 16 years since the idea for the park was first conceived, its backers have dealt with planning wrangles, ownership setbacks and site-clearance problems.
It has faced some vitriolic local debate and accusations of regeneration quangos wasting millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money.
On top of this, if JD Sports relocates to Kingsway, there are concerns about what will happen to its current depot at SEGRO’s Heywood Distribution Park, and to the hundred or so employees.
String of initiatives
The history of the Kingsway development goes back around two decades, to when the area was controlled by Lancashire county council and was in the hands of 100 different owners.
Despite a string of planning initiatives in the 1980s, not a lot happened and the original development partner, Tarmac, started to get cold feet. In the mid-1990s, it decided to move on and concentrate on its construction and aggregate divisions.
Wilson Bowden replaced Tarmac, and the partnership was born. The NWDA, which was established in the late 1990s, then took the bull by the horns and issued one of the biggest compulsory purchase orders ever seen in the UK. More than 90 landowners were targeted and the team began to look much more closely at the ragbag of brownfield and low-grade agricultural plots that it was about to inherit.
The site, which the development team proudly boasts is equivalent to 180 football pitches, now has all of its major ground-works completed, its landscaping in place and a new spine road connecting junction 21 of the M62 with the A664, the Kingsway-to-Rochdale bypass.
All it needs now is big occupiers. Local agents are keeping an eye on the development, not least because some major moves here could kickstart development at the giant Omega industrial and logistics park near Warrington, where no real progress has been made.
“We all keep talking about Omega at Warrington,” says Aherne, “but some genuine action at Kingsway would be the best way to get it moving.”
Deals on the site
Hi-tech storage firm Vindon Scientific, which has announced plans for further expansion across Europe, has taken the 29,500 sq ft next door to Takeuchi (below). It specialises in securely housing complex materials such as stem cells, DNA and biological matter in state-of-the-art sealed rooms and cabinets, many of which require exceptionally low cryogenic temperatures and steady humidities.
Japanese construction plant and equipment manufacturer Takeuchi has taken a 56,000 sq ft space on John Boyd Dunlop Drive, at the M62 end of the park, as its UK HQ. The company specialises in mini-excavators.
Kingsway is building a unit for Los Angeles-based glazing and stone products supplier CR Laurence, which has chosen the park for its European headquarters, after acquiring local firm Ebor last year. Construction is already well under way on the 71,000 sq ft, £6m deal, which features a special trade counter and showroom for clients.
Kingsway – the facts
