An 89,000 sq ft office block overlooking Bristol’s floating harbour has been acquired by Aviva Investors from German asset manager IVG Immobilien AG. The price paid for the King’s Orchard building in the heart of the city’s business district has not been disclosed.
Covering six floors, the building was extensively redeveloped early in 2007 to upgrade facilities and include an underground car park. It has since been let on a 20-year lease exclusively to law firm Bevan Brittan.
Since then the property has been partly sublet to Chartwell Healthcare, the international education solutions provider Tribal Group, Arista Insurance and restructuring and insolvency specialists FRP Advisory. In what was claimed to be one of the city’s largest office deals of 2014, engineers and project managers Parsons Brinckerhoff also took a 17,000sq ft sub-let.
Mike Luscombe is fund manager at Aviva Investors. “We are upbeat about the potential for UK real estate in 2015 and particularly key office markets outside London over the short to medium term,” he explained. “This purchase represents an attractive investment opportunity in a prime business location.”
The sale was handled for IVG by property service agents DTZ. “We are delighted with the result following a highly competitive bidding process,” said DTZ senior investment director Nick Allan, who claimed the sale was the biggest West Country transaction for more than a year. “It also highlights the dearth of opportunities to invest in one of the key UK cities.”
IVG Immobilien is a major player within the European real estate sector and manages assets worth £14.2bn. Its office building portfolio alone is said to be worth £2.7bn.
Under its German ownership, King’s Orchard developed into one of Bristol’s key business locations. Its own web site describes the building’s attractions as a full height glazed atrium and raised open plan floors throughout, shower facilities on each floor as well as a central fitness suite, a luxury staff restaurant and for-hire meeting and conference rooms.
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