A Manchester office building home to a number of digital, tech and creative start-ups has changed hands in a deal worth £16.5 million.
Property investment development company Helical plc has announced the off-market freehold acquisition of Fourways House, Hilton Street, from a private individual.
Located in the Northern Quarter, the Grade II-listed former packing warehouse provides 59,000 sq ft of space over basement, ground and five upper floors.
The property is let to 26 tenants largely from the tech, creative and fashion industries, including recruitment marketplace Hiring Hub and technology consulting and digital transformation firm Intechnica.
Also based in the building is Winners, customer intelligence specialists which increases participation, revenue and fan engagement in the sports industry; cloud and DevOps consultancy Steamhaus; and digital agency Creative Concern.
“This transaction is further evidence of our belief that Manchester offers attractive opportunities for our skill set outside of London and we are excited about Fourways House,” said Will Parry, asset management executive at Helical.
Fourways House has already benefitted from refurbishment to provide exposed brickwork, steel columns, timber floors and exposed ceilings.
Helical said it will undertake a rolling a rolling refurbishment programme as space becomes vacant as well as updating the common areas to help in repositioning the building.
Parry added: “It is a typical Helical building, meaning that it will provide plenty of opportunities to improve it visually, and create office space targeted at the tech and creative industries.
“On an operational basis it will also lend itself to providing flexible leases, thus enabling us to work alongside our tenants to provide a long term home for their growing businesses.”
Helical was advised by CBRE.