Industrial estate sells in Tewkesbury as the town becomes one of the UK's fastest-growing local authorities
M7 Real Estate, a leading specialist in pan-European, regional, multi-tenanted commercial real estate today, has sold Formal Industrial Estate in Tewkesbury, to a private client of Real Estate Investment Management.
According to property news website CoStar, the buyer is US private equity firm Ares, which it is reported paid around £23 million.
M7 acquired Formal Industrial Estate, which comprises around 285,700 sq ft of distribution and multi-let light industrial space, on behalf of a client. Following the administration of the asset’s principal occupier, M7 securing a major new letting with Bensonsforbeds Retail Ltd, generating long-term income. Formal Industrial Estate is now 100% let to nine occupiers with a weighted average unexpired lease term of 4.94 years to expiry.
Formal IE is located less than a mile from Junction 9 of the M5 Motorway.
Sadie Fitzpatrick, Senior Asset Manager at M7 Real Estate, said: “Formal IE required intensive asset management, M7’s area of expertise. Following the acquisition of Formal IE, we worked closely with all stakeholders to reposition the property. In the process we were able to meet the occupational requirements of Bensonsforbeds, successfully letting the space on a long-term lease and increasing the value of the asset. The sale of Formal IE generates significant returns for our client and is testament to the strength of the logistics market.”
M7 was represented by JLL. Allsops acted for the buyer.
Over the next 20 years Tewkesbury could be home to more than 12,000 new jobs. Tewkesbury Garden Town, planned to be developed just two miles from the old town centre, near Ashchurch off the A46, could offer 10,000 new homes and it is set become the biggest strategic housing site in Gloucestershire.
According to ONS figures, in 2019 Tewkesbury Borough was officially the fastest growing local authority area outside London. And around 30 per cent of all Gloucestershire’s housing growth to 2031 is in the borough. Pro rata,
that’s about twice as much as an equal share would be between the six district councils of the county.
And tied in with those new homes would be employment land – probably about 100 hectares – to provide the new jobs.
Financed by government and development partners’ cash, the new garden town is a long-term project and will cost millions of pounds.
Tewkesbury is also getting a big boost to the local economy with the current development of the Designer Outlet Cotswolds just off junction 9 of the M5 and fronting the A46. Robert Hitchins, the Cheltenham property developer, says it will open in 2022.
The 180-acre site will feature up to 90 shops, restaurants and cafes, the largest Dobbies garden centre in South West England and 850 homes complete with a school, local centre and recreation facilities.
