Scarborough Developments has won the race in Newport. Admiral Group has picked its Cambrian Centre development opposite the train station for its new 77,000 sq ft office. It is taking a 20-year lease with a break in year 16 showing, says Admiral, its long term commitment to Newport (all the lease details as well as incentives can be found in the EGi story).
The loser, Midas and Network Rail's Central Point, will have to go a long way to find another requirement of the size of Admiral. The office market in the town struggled to top 40,000 sq ft of take up in the year to October 2011.
But size aside, the deal is interesting for what it reveals about the way occupiers think. Huw Llewellyn, Admiral's head of property, said Cambrian Centre inched ahead because of its car parking - Admiral operates a shift working which means it needs to offer staff the opportunity to travel by car - but also because of its location and proximity to the train station.
Now, the Cambrian Centre is undoubtedly very close to the station and is the right side of the busy Queensway road to allow popping into the town centre to be easy. But Central Point is next to the train station. The land is owned by Network Rail which gives should give you a clue to just how close by it is.
Llewellyn say that deals offered by both developers were fairly similar. And he admits that it is the matter of a "few hundred metres" between the two but that was enough to swing it for the Cambrian Centre and Scarborough Developments.
Llewellyn says that Newport is "trying so hard" to get regeneration off the ground. He adds that "this development dovetails really well with the rest of the regeneration.
It also assists Newport in redevelopment strategy this is testament to our work with them".
The deal also secures two big redevelopment sites who's future has been uncertain since Modus collapsed.With Queensberry now on board to deliver Friars Walk the abandoned Modus retail scheme; and Scarborough Developments, which bought the then City Spires site in 2010 as part of Modus' £37m retail portfolio, two big regeneration problems now seem to be moving ahead.
It looks like Scarborough Developments will have to revisit its 2010 planning application which asked for 42,000 sq ft of offices and in light of yesterday's Tesco results it might be at least reconsidering its supermarket-led strategy but these are all just small bumps in the road.
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