Active Asset Investment Management (aAIM), the property syndicator backed by Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson, has teamed up with Brentford Football Club to prepare a bid for one of west London’s best-known buildings.
They are considering the historic Isleworth home of razor manufacturer Gillette for a new state-of-the-art stadium complex for the division one football club, which has been looking to move from nearby Griffin Park to a larger base for several years.
The suitablity of the 10.5-acre Gillette Corner site for a football stadium is still being assessed. If aAIM and the Brentford Bees make a successful bid, they will join a shortlist, due to be announced in the next few weeks, that is likely to include Terrace Hill, Kier Developments, Heron and Berkeley/Brixton.
Gillette’s 327,000 sq ft Grade II-listed art deco building at the heart of the site sits alongside seven other manufacturing and office buildings totalling 511,000 sq ft.
The development brief, drawn up by English Heritage and Hounslow council, proposes
up to 500,000 sq ft of mixed-use development.
The local market has been tipping a manufacturing and warehousing-led scheme to gain consent because the site falls within Hounslow council’s strategic employment area.
Brentford FC has so far drawn up plans for a 20,000-capacity stadium at a former Strategic Railway Authority site in Brentford, on Lionel Road close to Kew Bridge. But progress at the site, which is owned by industrial specialist Chancerygate, has been painstakingly slow.
In response, Brentford has signed an exclusivity agreement with aAIM, which counts a number of Premiership footballers, including England and Chelsea star Frank Lampard, among its investors, to bid for the Gillette Corner site.
A spokesperson for Brentford FC said the keys to the redevelopment of Griffin Park, which has outline planning permission for residential development, “would be handed over to the developer of the stadium”.
References: EGi News 13/06/05
