Consolation prize eases misfortune

Jul 1 2009 by Peter McCusker, The Journal

THE Terrace Hill Group has responded to the disappointment of losing a pre-let at a prestigious Tyneside site by signing an agreement for 38,500sq ft on Teesside.

Middlesbrough Primary Care Trust has agreed to take the entire Hudson Quay 2 office building in its Manhattan Gate project at Middlehaven.

The trust will take a 15-year lease at an initial rent of £616,000pa and construction will start in a few weeks.

Earlier this year Terrace Hill suffered a blow when npower pulled out of a 100,000sq ft pre-let at Gateshead’s Baltic Business Quarter.

The power company later moved to former Northern Rock offices at Rainton Bridge business park, near Sunderland. Hudson Quay 2 is the second of five buildings planned at Manhattan Gate, which when complete will provide 142,500sq ft of offices. The letting follows Hertel’s move of its UK HQ to Hudson Quay 1 last December.

Terrace Hill chief executive Philip Leech said: “This is a great endorse- ment of our scheme and clearly demonstrates that despite the current challenging market conditions, we are still able to attract tenants to our high quality and well located developments.

“Our current emphasis in develop- ment is to focus on pre-let or pre-sold schemes, which is demonstrated by this pre-letting and those recently announced to Sainsbury’s.

“This philosophy should produce high returns with low risk to capital employed and greatly enhance shareholder value in our business.”

Dodds Brown and storeys:ssp were letting agents for Terrace Hill.