Developer with a passion for his projects

Mar 3 2008 by Graeme King, The Journal

Fast-growing developer Mandale has schemes right across the region and beyond. Graeme King met estates director Joe Darragh and talked not only about property, but building snooker tables and the joy of time spent away from your mobile.

THE overriding impression you get of Joe Darragh is a man who works very hard and long hours - but also someone who gets real pleasure from that graft.

He talks with pride of the developments Mandale has contributed to the North East, spending some time on the transformation wrought at Hartlepool Marina, and explaining the complex rebuilding job required for the Bonded Warehouse in Newcastle.

The 41-year-old estates director of Mandale is never a very easy person to get hold of, as a mobile phone is normally to be found to his ear as he rushes between the company’s various sites, so it is a luxury to sit down with him in the Bonded Warehouse – now known as Hanover Mill – for three quarters of an hour and see what makes him and Mandale tick.

This is a company with a massive development programme, turning over more than £40m, and with projects not just in one specialist sector, but straddling offices, residential, leisure, industrial and retail.

The redeveloped Hanover Mill is quite something to behold, especially given its chaotic history of fire and destruction. Entering from the steeply sloping Hanover Street at the rear of the structure, you walk into a walkway with a roof to floor lightwell. Then Darragh leads us down corridors and into one of the 134 apartments now packed into the seven storeys of the old structure and a new extension.

It appears the accommodation has been prepared with a deliberately ‘blank canvas’ approach, to allow the new owners to make each one their own.

The views from the far eastern end are smashing, with the High Level and Tyne Bridges dominating the skyline. The project is a symbol of the distance Mandale – and Darragh – have travelled since the company moved into the world of property back in 1986.

Well before then, Darragh started out in life in Thornaby near Stockton, attended the town’s St Patrick’s comprehensive school, and then left at 16 to take up an apprenticeship at fabrication company Headwrightsons.

Within six months, however, he had moved on to a company called the Pool and Snooker Centre, which was at the heart of the peak in popularity snooker enjoyed in the early 80s when world champion Steve Davis carried all before him.

He says: “We were making snooker and pool tables, and the company just got bigger and bigger -– we sold tables all over the world.

“We imported slate specially from a quarry in Italy, and the team went all over the UK refurbishing matchplay tables for the big tournaments.

“Davis was the person everybody loved to hate. But then as soon as he lost, people lost interest.”

Darragh then explains, in a very matter of fact way, how the Pool & Snooker Centre slowly managed to re-invent itself in the property business.

It’s quite an entrepreneurial achievement, but he tells it as just a necessity for the company to keep trading.

He says: “We went from snooker tables into renting industrial units and office blocks. Then we went on from there and just carried on going -– management of property, building industrial units, offices and apartments.

“We began to specialise in building apartments and renting them out, all before the buy-to-let market became so big.

“Then eventually we started to build apartments to sell.

“That is seven years ago now. We taught ourselves to show people round offices, and talk them into renting offices and flats.

“A lot of it is having the personality to communicate with people at whatever level is required.

“With the apartments, we started building small blocks then got bigger and bigger and bigger. We first had 20 apartments, then 40, then 60.

“This scheme (incorporating Hanover Mill and Forth Banks) has 175 apartments. In Preston, we have 205 units in a big old, six storey converted mill building. Each floor was an acre.

“People love old fashioned buildings with modern interiors.”

Long before Hanover Mill, a real landmark development for Mandale was at Hartlepool Marina, where the company started out with just two office blocks, but then went on to acquire the whole site.

Darragh says: “It was desolate and there were not many boats. We upgraded the berthings and moorings and took it from 30 boats up to 450, provided all the facilities, restaurants and bars, apartments and offices.

“We’ve invested a total of between £50m and £60m in the marina as a whole. We still own it, everything that’s there, and it’s all rented out.”

So what made the company think this might work then? Why in this run down spot, where investment was thin on the ground, did Mandale think they could make it work?

Darragh is modest on this, and generously praises the work of Mandale founder David Harriman.

“The thing with Dave is that he looks at something, and the vision of what to do with it comes straight away. Where I’m on letting it, he has the vision to do the schemes.”

The other side to Mandale’s success seems to be the company’s pace of work. Darragh says the marina could have easily taken the average developer 20 years to develop, but Mandale got down to it and brought the site back to life in just four.

“You have got to ‘get in and get out’ and provide the facilities for people.”

In trying to understand what has made Mandale successful in recent years, it seems the quality that distinguishes them from other development companies is the speed and boldness of their decision making.

While many years had passed without the former Bonded Warehouse on the Quayside being developed, and the building suffered more than one devastating fire, eventually – when demolition still looked like it might be necessary – Mandale stepped in to buy the building, and have since created 134 apartments inside it.

But surely there was risk attached to a building that was only managing to stay upright with the aid of scaffolding?

“When this building came up, we looked at it quite a few times. The building had major problems and the engineering was an absolute nightmare.

“There was four months of work to stabilise the building and put new floors in. There was a steel frame bolted on to the brick, and we put lintels into the windows. We have kept the nooks and crannies in it.

“We thought we needed to get in quick. The apartments had already been sold three times, and then the money paid back to the buyers. What it needed was someone with a track record to come in and do the work.”

Mandale has had up to 400 workers on site bringing the scheme together and Darragh hopes to be able to keep most of them on when it is complete, as the company has several schemes in the pipeline, including a mixed use project in the Ouseburn valley.

“We want to retain the workforce and get them on to other schemes. As soon as we are done here, we will get a jump start down in Ouseburn. We are also in the process of buying two to three more sites around the area.”

Darragh does not say much about himself, preferring to keep to his specialist subject of Mandale’s stellar growth, but it is a relief to hear he does get some relaxation – and it’s interesting to hear that this apparent workaholic can switch off, in more ways than one.

“I’m not extravagant. I live in a small, standard house. I love swimming – one to one and a half hours on a night when you’re away from your phone.”

As we are leaving Hanover Mill, I manage one last question. What is next for the ambitious Mandale to achieve?

“We keep going,” Darragh says without hesitation.

“We build more residential, shops, office blocks, business parks. We have a 50 acre site next to the prison at Stockton for one thing.”

And then Darragh is back in his silver people carrier, and is driven back to the A19 to Stockton for his next meeting, with mobile phone clamped back against his right ear.

Mandale has come a long way in a relatively short space of time, and with Joe Darragh working at this intensity, delivering the projects he and David Harriman put together, there will be many more exciting times ahead.