With the recent unveiling of more than £150m worth of commercial and science projects in the city, Colliers International has continued to boost its Bristol development and planning team.
Some of Colliers’ latest recruits (left to right): Katie Spackman, Nick More, Chris Dawson, Saiqa Noreen and Andrew Frost.
“This is a genuinely exciting time with a number of seemingly unrelated development trends in the South West coming together simultaneously,” commented Chris Dawson, local director of development consulting with the global agency.
On the back of what he described as an increase in market activity, he said Colliers was now “aggressively seeking to identify opportunities’. As part of that strategy the firm was “selectively recruiting to build both our team numbers and expertise”.
So far this year planners Chris Dawson and Saiqa Noreen, development planner Katie Spackman and graduate surveyor Andrew Frost have joined the Bristol staff.
Other 2015 additions to the firm’s new Templeback office include head of planning, Tom Stanley, and directors Jay Ridsdale and Laurence Edwards.
“We are seeing significant site promotion activity,” Dawson added. “In Bristol several dormant city centre sites look as if they will come forward for development in the next 12 months.”
Earlier this summer plans were unveiled for a £100m office scheme — claimed to be the city’s biggest ever office development — next to Temple Meads station and close to the fast emerging Temple Quarter Enterprise Zone. The area is dominated by law offices and accountants and is in the heart of Bristol’s business district.
Developer Commercial Estates Group (CEG) says the 200,000 sq ft block would be designed as an open plan style office with eight floors centred around a double height atrium. Work is expected to start early next year and the first of its 2,500 workers installed by 2017.
Plans were also recently revealed for the expansion of Bristol & Bath Science Park. Opened in 2011, the campus has so far attracted more than 40 tenants employing around 35 staff.
Professor Iain Gray, chairman of the science park’s newly created steering committee set up to deliver phase two of the site’s development, said: “This expansion is a vital component in the production line for developing new sectors where the West of England is already establishing a leadership position, from robotics to quantum computing technologies.”
A key element of the expansion would be a 55,000 sq ft global automotive research facility for growing businesses working with cutting edge composite materials. The £50m innovation centre, led by the University of Bath, would hopefully bring the talents of academia and industry together to deliver world-leading research in car engines.
“The science park has made a fantastic contribution to the local economy in the last four years and it is an exciting time to be connected with this project,” added Gray.
Colliers’ Chris Dawson also said the housing market in the city and its surrounding areas was beginning to pick up. “There now seems to be more focussed house builder interest in sites with fairly short term potential, which mirrors the region’s shortfall in housing supply allocations,” he added.
“Colliers International is busy across both commercial and housing markets and this is why we have been growing the team with an appropriately diverse skill — not to mention plenty of enthusiasm.”
