Praxis Holdings has added a seventh shopping mall to its retail portfolio by acquiring the St John’s Shopping Centre in Preston. It’s also snapped up a Cheshire office building, with both deals costing the London-based property investor just £7m. The latest transactions are part of a high-profit asset shake-up for Praxis — which has sold six properties in the last six months — and has acquired more than £400m worth of real estate since 2009.
The St John’s complex, bought from Land Securities for £4m, is immediately adjacent to the newly- Grade II listed Preston Bus Station (pictured). It contains 23 retail units across 70,000sq ft of space. “The footfall is tremendous and, with rents around £20 per square foot, it is very affordable for retailers,” said Praxis investment manager Jack Burgess.
“There is a general over supply of retail in Preston, but St John’s benefits uniquely from its proximity to the bus station with 50,000 passengers passing through daily,” he added. “Now that the bus station is listed, the location is never going to go away.”
Land Securities, the UK’s largest commercial property company, paid £5m for the St John’s mall in 2011 when the site was vital to a proposed £700m redevelopment of the Lancashire city. That scheme, dubbed the Tithebarn Plan, has since been shelved.
In its second deal, 57 miles to the south, Praxis has paid £2.7m for the 31,533sq ft Millennium Gate II office building on the 67-acre Crewe Business Park. The property, fully let to gas supplier Air Products, was sold by Knight Frank, acting as Law of Property Act Receivers to Kings Properties Ltd. The guide price was £2.1m
“Millennium Gate II is a Grade A building fully let to a blue chip tenant,” said Burgess. “At £82 per square foot, we bought it for far less than replacement cost.”
According to Knight Frank the current rental income from the Millennium office block is £426,000, split between two leases. The ground floor was originally let to Focus DIY for 15 years from 2001 at an annual rent of £130,247, and subsequently assigned to Air Products. The two upper floors were already occupied by Air Products on a 15 year lease from 2000 and at £295,818 a year.
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