Crawley Commercial Property Revival

A spate of deals has lifted the market in Crawley, notably two sales of sizeable office blocks. At the same time the industrial market has remained tough with demand concentrated at the smaller end.

Michael Deacon-Jackson of FTD JOHNS said: “So far this year we have seen deals of over 3,716 sq.m. which is more than in the whole of 2009.” Some tenants have used the increased activity to prise favourable deals out of their landlords by indicating they were moving.” He added: “We have achieved two notable sales this year, both to owner occupiers. These were SEGRO’s 1,486 sq.m. South Point and Glenbeigh Developments’ G3 at Three Bridges.” In addition his firm acted in letting offices in Northgate House to Alexander Lloyd and Stiles Harold Williams has also acted in a letting at Elm Park Court.

The encouraging point for the future is that there are two agent led enquiries for around 929 sq.m. for Fender Group and Air Partner. Nevertheless, there remains an oversupply of offices. As far as industrial property is concerned, Deacon-Jackson said: ”Demand and supply is in reasonable balance. GE showed with its Brunel Centre that investing money in the units (in this case £50,000 each) can be rewarded with lettings that enabled the agent to inch the rent up to £83.39 a sq.m. One of the problems for the agents remains that the deals are taking longer to complete than in the past.

Another significant deal in Crawley has been Cantium getting planning permission for a 3,995 sq.m. supermarket on the site it has held for 18 months adjacent to the County Oak Retail Park. Chris Boulter of Cantium said: “This has been a real achievement for us because the site is close to the Manor Royal Industrial Estate where 30,000 people work. We are now going to the market with the proposal which is for a nicely sized unit.The 18 months’ ownership has given us the time to exploit the full potential of the site.”


The Kent, Surrey and Sussex Commercial Property Register

The Commercial Property Register for Kent, Surrey and Sussex is a leading UK business property publication from Martin Austen Publishing. The aim of the publication is to offer a simple and effective means of finding Offices Space, Serviced Offices and Commercial Property in Kent Surrey and Sussex. You can also find the latest commercial property news for this region.