Sale of 45-acre Global Logistics site announced at Airport City

Icon Industrial, a joint venture between TPG Real Estate and Stoford Developments, has completed a deal to acquire 45 acres of prime development land at Global Logistics, which could create 5,000 new jobs and a further 1m sq ft of logistics space within Airport City Manchester.

As one of the UK’s largest joint venture commercial development projects, Airport City Manchester has already seen the creation of over 2,000 new jobs and attracted substantial investment across the 821,000 sq ft developed to date.

The completion of the Global Logistics deal, which is for an undisclosed sum, now means that 75 acres of a total 130 acres across Airport City Manchester has now been transacted by the Joint Venture Partners, Manchester Airports Group (MAG), BCEGI, Carillion PLC and GMPF, since 2014.

Lynda Shillaw, MAG Property CEO, said: “The sale of 45 acres at Global Logistics is a significant milestone and builds upon the £30m of investment made by the joint venture to date. Airport City Manchester is a really exciting location for occupiers, located at the southern growth node of the region, an already well-established business location alongside the Manchester Airport campus. This transaction comes at an exciting time for the Airport City Manchester joint venture as momentum is building around the first new offices and hotels planned to start on site.”

The development land at Global Logistics, which benefits from outline planning permission for 952,000 sq ft of lettable logistics space, will be built into a prime asset, with a total development value of c. £100m.  To date, Global Logistics has established itself as a prime North West logistics site following the arrival of significant international logistics operators such as Amazon and DHL, which have benefited from its current infrastructure, transport links and proximity to the airport.

In the past 18 months at Global Logistics, the DHL Global Logistics facility was sold by MAG Property for £7.68m to HPPUT and Amazon’s 654,000 sq ft fulfilment centre was being acquired by German investor Hansainvest from Mountpark for a reported £34.8m, achieving a yield of c4.5%.

In addition, the Airport City Manchester Joint Venture also delivered ALPHA, a 130,000 sq ft logistics facility, which was sold to the Greater Manchester Pension Fund (GMPF) for £12.2m at the end of 2016.

Simon Eastwood, Managing Director of Carillion Developments, said: “The progress we have made at Global Logistics has been strong and has set the pace for what will be delivered at Airport City Manchester. Across the site, we’re in advanced discussions with a number of potential major occupiers who require campus style offices and there continues to be strong interest from hotel operators, which on the back of the growth of the airport, see the clear benefits of this unique location.”

Key infrastructure works are already underway within Airport City North with the delivery of the £15m Enterprise Way link road, which is currently under construction and is being delivered by main contractor, Beijing Construction Engineering Group International (BCEGI).

Enterprise Way, which will be completed by February 2018, will connect office and hotel development plots within Airport City North to the rest of the site and the wider transport network. This latest project is part of the £30m investment that has been committed by the Airport City Manchester JV partners into the development so far.

Once complete, the £1billion development will comprise five million sq ft of premium office space, hotels, advanced manufacturing, logistics facilities and ancillary retail.

CBRE, JLL, Eversheds Sutherland and Slaughter & May advised Airport City Manchester. Stoford and Gateley advised the Purchaser.