Case Study: Land and Buildings at Llandegai Industrial Estate, Bangor

Acting on behalf of a North West client, Roger Hannah & Co advised on the acquisition of land and buildings at Llandegai Industrial Estate, Bangor.

The property had been on the market for approximately 12 months with the acquisition price over £1.75 million. The property itself consisted of around 96,000 sq ft of vacant industrial accommodation on an 11 acre site. A price was agreed to buy the property at £1.3 million.

Following the acquisition, negotiations were held to acquire an additional site at the rear of the property being a further 2.25 acres of land. This was purchased for £225,000. As such, the acquisition costs were marginally over £1.5 million for some 13 acres of land with around 96,000 sq ft of industrial accommodation.

Discussions were then entered into with the Local Planning Authority concerning a change of use. The prospect of a change of use was initially met with strong opposition. After further discussions, a change of use application was agreed with the Local Authority to allow a mixed use leisure and B1/B8 industrial use on the land.

Despite marketing the land to leisure operators for a long period of time, very few operators expressed an interest in locating in the Bangor area. As such, it was decided to proceed with other options for the site.

Roger Hannah & Co were aware of a potential requirement from the Driving Standards Agency for a new motor bike test track. They had a specific requirement for the Bangor area. We brought to their attention the availability of the Bangor site and this led to an agreement being concluded for our client to undertake the works to construct a small office and a motor cycle track centre on a 3 acre site. A new 40 year lease was entered into with a 20 year break at a rental of £140,000 per annum. This took around 3 acres of land and left the client with around 10 acres of land.

The client proceeded to demolish several buildings to the front of the site to clear the frontage and has since embarked on a refurbishment scheme to create a trade park at Llandegai Industrial Estate. To date, occupiers such as Eurocell have signed for accommodation at Llandegai Industrial Estate known as Bangor Gateway.