The Focus Blog

So Montpellier Estates leading lady Jan Fletcher has decided to put at least put part of the bad blood between her company and Leed City council behind her and move ahead with plans for its 9.4 acre City One site on Sweet Street.

A planning application has been submitted at the site that was overlooked by the city council for its Leeds Arena plans, a decision that ended up with Montpellier suing the council over its decision.

And my is that planning application grand . Around 2m sq ft of space is planned including 1m sq ft of offices (you can read it in full on the council website here or I've split the main components down in the continue reading link below).

The site is split into five sections including an offices boulevard to the east of the site and the potential for a new road to the west, Bowling Green Terrace Link Road, dependent on the capacity of the existing road network.

According to plans published by the council a few days ago Montpellier plans three buildings in the office boulevard of 9, 11 and 13 storeys. The largest building on the site will be to the north of the site bordering Sweet Street compromising 25 storeys which is labelled up on plans as hotel and leisure.

Rightmove's done a rather nice map of its house price index launched today.

The figures are for March, compared to February, and show the slowest March ever recorded. Yet it seems the only losers are the West Midlands, Greater London and the East of England which all saws drops around the 4-5%. Biggest winner was the North West which saw prices up 8.7%.

You can click here for a bigger version.

 

 PUBLISHED 24 APRIL 2010  

All features cover the North East including Newcastle, Gateshead, Sunderland and Middlesbrough

 
The Market: Statistical round up covering offices, retail and industrial.

Send up to date data to stacey.meadwell@estatesgazette.com or nadia.elghamry@estatesgazette.com

 

Retail: Analysis of project in the pipeline and current market performance

David Thame, freelance writer, 01544 262 896, dthame@clara.co.uk

 

Offices: Analysis of key issues and future trends

Daniel Cunningham, senior writer, 020 7911 1822, daniel.cunningham@estatesgazette.com

 

Leisure: Analysis of key issues and trends

David Quinn, freelance writer, 07841 115 601, david@wordsdept.co.uk

 

Regeneration: Paul Morrell has called for a cull of old 70s architecture in city centres with Newcastle highlighted as one of the worst. Which buildings do agents think should be pulled down and which will leave sites ripe for regeneration?

Daniel Cunningham, senior writer, 020 7911 1822, daniel.cunningham@estatesgazette.com

 Please contact writers by 30th March 2010

 

ISIS Waterside Regeneration launched Candle House at Granary Wharf, Leeds last night (a few pictures are above), hoping presumably to reel in a few buyers to what is the final part of the Granary Wharf jigsaw.

The twenty-one storey building was lit up like a birthday cake but is yet to sell any of its 160 apartments which (unsurprisingly) it is marketing at owner occupiers. For just shy of the £100, 000 mark you'd get a studio and access to one of Leeds highest rooftop gardens. For £135, 000 you'd bag a two bedder.

The developers have spent £90m on the Granary Wharf facelift and are aiming the retail at non-high street occupiers. Ossett Brewery announced it would open up at the development earlier this year but although there are a couple of potential lettings in the offing ISIS says nothing has been signed and sealed.

While our Edinburgh reception was in full swing I managed to coax some of the city's agents and developers to a quiet(ish) corner to ask them about the market's prospects this year and whether the Scottish capital would be leading the way out of recession.

A full set of photo's from the reception can be found by clicking  clicking here and our Edinburgh Focus is published in this weeks magazine.

Edinburgh property market predictions from Stacey Meadwell on Vimeo.

Phew for RIFW. That's the Regeneration Investment Fund for Wales, known as RIFW by the Welsh Assembly Government and Jessica to anyone in the EU - are you all still following? It just might get a few regeneration projects off the ground.

As the rest of Europe ponders what to do with with Jessica (or the Joint European Support for the Sustainable Investment in City Areas), Wales have decided to lead the way, giving her a name change, a fresh coat of lipstick and launching RIFW. It will be jangling its wares at Mipim next week and WAG will appoint fund and investment managers to the initative this summer.

The business community seem to have welcomed it and  King Sturge's South Wales property report, released today (and covered in full in the continue reading link), makes a point of highlighting it and the refreshed political scene in Wales.

But wasn't Wales trying to move away from that grant culture? In fact King Sturge's report makes a point of saying how the business community has welcomed in the selection of Carwyn Jones as first minister, applauded for his "business friendly focus"and "pragmatic approach to supporting big business and the gradual transition away from a grants culture".
 
That will be even more important after what King Sturge calls a "tough but interesting year ahead with a price to be paid for the years of excess".

Administrations have ripped giant holes through the UK's high streets.  Cushman and Wakefield's recent report A Survey of Prime Retail Locations reveals just how big those holes are.

It says the East of England appears to be the most resilient region to departing retailers (see graph below). The region has the lowest level of availability with 6.5% of units vacant. Outer London meanwhile appears blighted by them and has the highest vacancy rate with 17.4% of units availabile.

Source: Cushman & Wakefield LLP

Well it wasn't as bad as Synovate forecast it might be back in January but the bad weather's been blamed yet again for a bad February in the shops.

Synovate released it's February figures today - you can click on the map to see a larger version - and while it had been predicting a 6% drop back in January, the actual figures show that the UK as a whole is down 1.3% on this time last year and 3% on January.

Wales and the South west were the only region to show growth, although compared to January this was pretty marginal.

Year-on-year the biggest losers were Scotland and Northern Ireland, but despite a disastrous month for the two, where figures fell 6% on last year and 4% on January, Synovate is forecasting a very good March

Synovate now reckon it's unlikely that the Easter vacation will have enough of an impact to salvage what it calls "another month of shopper fatigue". As someone very wisely commented on this blog recently, shouldn't all that cold weather make everyone rush out and by big woolly coats and thick jumpers?

Imagine my surprise yesterday when North East-based property tycoon David Abrahams (pictured) told me that Durham Green, the business park scheme in County Durham which he is currently selling, could eventually contain a whopping 75m sq ft of commercial space.

Abrahams, who achieved a degree of fame as the man who sparked the government's 2007 'donorgate' scandal, is in the process of selling the 540-acre site in County Durham to First Industrial Developments, the company formed by a group of ex-Prologis directors last year. (EGi subscribers can read the full story here).

First Industrial say the first 75-acre phase of the project is likely to comprise a somewhat more conservative 1.3m sq ft of industrial and office space, rather than the 8m sq ft-plus suggested by Abrahams. The entire project, believe First Industrial would only just get above that at a more realistic 10m sq ft.

By contrast phase two of Prologis' DIRFT development will be 2m sq ft.

Overview
Analysis of local market, covering Carlisle, Preston, Blackburn, Burnley, Lancaster and Blackpool
Melanie Smith, editorial assistant - 020 7911 1916, melanie.smith@estatesgazette.com

Blackpool
A look at key projects
Daniel Cunningham, senior writer, 020 7911 1822, daniel.cunningham@estatesgazette.com

Lancaster
What's in store for the city's development?
David Thame, freelance writer, 01544 262 896, dthame@clara.co.uk

Public sector
Analysis of the sector and its effect on the local market
Karen Day, freelance writer, 07971 671 369, karen.day@dsl.pipex.com