Real estate services provider, Savills, admits it is expecting “worldwide interest” in a trio of premier office buildings it is selling on Glasgow waterfront.
The agency — which is looking for offers in excess of £62.5m for the Atlantic Quay properties — says a number of UK and overseas funds have already expressed an interest and are likely to be among the front-running bidders. The deadline for offers closed at midnight last night.
Totalling 280,714 sq ft, the three buildings are One, Two and Three Atlantic Quay in the heart of the city’s international financial services district. All three are fully let to long-standing corporate tenants including BAE Systems, Lloyds Bank, Axa Insurance, the global engineering group Mott MacDonald and Scottish Ministers. Jointly they produce a rental income of £5.5m a year.
Savills’ investment director, Mark Fleming, said the strong level of interest was good news for Glasgow and comes at a time “when strong occupier demand and limited new Grade A accommodation is driving performance in the market”.
The award-winning Atlantic Quay was built in the early 1990s by Bellhouse in partnership with Kumagai Gumi. All three buildings included in the portfolio — of 122,943, 77,273 and 80,498 sq ft — have floor plates up to 24,000 sq ft and are arranged around a central landscaped courtyard.
Glasgow’s financial district is set to improve still further with a start expected later this year on the planned development of Atlantic Square, where joint venture partners BAM and Taylor Clark are building two commercial blocks of 180,000 and 80,000 sq ft.
Fleming added the Atlantic Quay sale would only add strength to the UK’s booming office market in which transactions in Britain’s top six regional cities has more than doubled year-on-year to reach a 2014 seven year high of £2.6bn.
Among Scotland’s biggest investment deals during the past six months were M&G’s £72.6m purchase of Aurora on Glasgow’s Bothwell Street, Aberdeen Asset Management’s acquisition of 151-155 St Vincent Street in the city for £27.8m and Knight Frank Investment Management paying £24.52m for EHQ2 at Edinburgh’s Fountainbridge. The largest sale was HSBC Alternative Investments’ purchase of Port Hamilton in the Scottish capital for £105.5m.
