Acuitus will seek to bring the gavel down on a Cambridgeshire storage facility currently used by the Imperial War Museum at its upcoming auction.
The £4m facility at Duxford comprises 11 standalone and purpose-built storage units on a 12-acre site and is being offered with a guide price of £225,000-£250,000.
The site currently houses reels of original nitrate film dating from 1901 to 1951 that were used in documentaries including the BBC’s They Shall Not Grow Old, in which Lord of the Rings director Peter Jackson added colourisation, sound effects and voices to footage from the Battle of the Somme and other first world war events.
The freehold site is currently let to the Trustees of the Imperial War Museum until 2060 and provides an annual income of £36,697 but has potential for redevelopment.
The Imperial War Museum has a rolling option to terminate its lease from 2020. The site can also contractually be reinstated to agricultural use by the museum upon the request of the landlord, unlocking the site for potential commercial development.
David Margolis, investment director and auctioneer at Acuitus, said: “If the museum did vacate, then the owner would be in possession of a very highly specified secure storage facility which could be used for high-value items such as artworks or other collections. Alternatively, the new landlord can request that the tenant comprehensively reinstates to agricultural use, which is likely to be at considerable cost to the tenant. Alternative use potential then comes into focus, subject to planning of course”.
Acuitus’s next auction takes place at the Radisson Blu Portman hotel, W1, on 4 April.
First world war images © BBC
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