IM PROPERTIES has completed the pre-let of a 50,000sq ft customer delivery hub at Solihull Business Park to retailer John Lewis.
The new West Midland’s facility — expected to create at least 100 jobs — is the first of John Lewis’s new customer delivery hubs which will focus on fulfilling all its UK online orders and deliveries. It is expected to be operating in time for Christmas 2014.
Nigel Harris, property manager at John Lewis, said: “This new hub will provide a dedicated service building to support our existing and future stores in the area and enhance our growth and support to online shopping.”
There were, explained Harris, specific criteria in selecting the site. “Given the function of the building it was vital that we found an accessible location situated in the heart of the West Midlands region with good access to the motorway network. Solihull Business Park ticked all of the boxes,” he added.
The partnership, which already operates a nearby warehouse, is already heavily committed to the area. A John Lewis department store already anchors the nearby Touchwood shopping centre and it’s Waitrose subsidiary is in the process of opening a store in central Solihull.
Last year’s internet purchases far outstripped store sales for John Lewis, Britain’s biggest retailer, with a pre-Christmas increase on 2011 of almost 45 per cent. Traditional over the counter sales rose by just 13 per cent. And earlier this year the partnership admitted that around a quarter of all its sales are completed over the internet.
Lewis Payne is development manager at Coleshill-based IM Properties. “To agree a pre-let to John Lewis within six months of acquiring the park speaks volumes about both the quality of the site and its location within easy reach of the UK’s transport networks,” he said.
One of the UK’s largest privately owned development companies, IM Properties — which has built more than five-million sq ft of commercial property during the last decade — has an investment and development portfolio of £1bn across the UK, Europe and the United States. Its client base spans the industrial, retail, and office sectors and includes a number of global businesses such as Sainsbury’s, Tesco, Next, House of Fraser, UPS, Volkswagen, BT, JP Morgan, Morgan Stanley and BMW.
As part of its strategy to acquire key employment sites in the West Midlands, IM purchased the 10-acre development site from Wilson Bowden Developments. The business park already had planning permission for around 150,000sq ft of office, industrial and distribution units.
The deal with John Lewis has prompted the property company to submit an application for two additional industrial and distribution buildings at the park of 30,000sq ft and 50,000sq ft each.
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