The Humberside site on which British Aerospace developed its Hawk jet trainer — used by the RAF’s Red Arrows display team since 1979 — has been sold in a £10m deal.
East Yorkshire’s Humber Enterprise Park, on which BAE Systems still has a presence, has been sold to LC Industrial, a joint venture between Lumina Real Estate Capital and Leeds-based business space specialist Citivale.
As part of the sell-off, the defence and aerospace company negotiated a new leases for the 555,000 sq ft it still occupies on the 86-acre site.
Other tenants in the park’s 1.3 million sq ft of office and industrial space include the aerospace components manufacturers Supercraft and Cablescan and East Riding of Yorkshire Council. The park, which benefits from enterprise zone and assisted area status, also has 20 acres of development land.
Ken Mellis is real estate manager for BAE Systems. “We are pleased to have concluded this deal with Lumina and Citivale,” he said. “It not only represents a significant step forward in the development and future of the Humber Enterprise Park, but Lumina and Citivale’s combined experience and funds will see progress on what is fast becoming the business park to locate to within the Humber region.”
Lumina Real Estate Capital and Citivale launched LC Industrial five months ago with an initial investment fund of £50m. The partnership has already bought a 110,000 sq ft industrial warehouse at South Elmsall, near Wakefield, for just over £4m.
As Citivale’s managing director, James Appleton-Metcalfe, said the venture’s biggest investment so far “sits perfectly” with the partnership’s strategy of buying secondary assets and using its combined skills and expertise to reposition the assets through refurbishment and development.
“We have some exciting and innovative plans for the site which I am confident will see the business park develop into one of the prime office and industrial locations within the Hull and East Riding region,” he added.
The biggest single Humberside sale in almost a decade, joint agents PPH Commercial claimed the deal is already attracting attention. “These are exciting times for Humber Enterprise Park and we are dealing with a number of large enquiries for the site,” said PPH director, Ben Medhurst.
In keeping with its history, future tenants are expected to include defence and aerospace businesses, which would be able to re-employ some of the skilled staff laid off when BAE downsized and made 899 works redundant two years ago.
Humber’s enterprise park — known as BAE Brough when the company used the entire site — has an aeronautical history stretching back almost a century. During the First World War it was used by the Blackburn Aeroplane & Motor Company. Taken over by the RAF in the late 1930s it was renamed Brough Flying Training School and prepared scores of legendary fighter pilots for the Battle of Britain, among them the high-scoring ace James “Ginger” Lacey.
Between 1949 and 1957 the aerodrome’s perimeter taxiway was used as a race track — and was where Stirling Moss recorded his first motor racing win.
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