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Colston Tower, which currently has 33 tenants letting office space and boasts an 85 per cent occupation rate, was bought by Development Securities and Ellandi LLP for GBP 7.6 million.
Under the terms of the sale, Development Securities has a 75 per cent stake in the building while Ellandi has 25 per cent.
Colston Tower, which was acquired from HSBC Pensions Fund, has a weighted average unexpired term of 4.1 years, and according to Development Securities, there is lots of opportunity to add value to the building through refurbishment.
Matthew Weiner, Executive Director of Development Securities, said: “This latest acquisition continues our deployment of capital since July 2009 when Development Securities completed the first of its two recent GBP 100 million equity raises.
“Colston Tower provides a high-income return and significant scope to improve the property through intensive asset management.”
Mark Robinson, partner of Ellandi LLP, added: “We are delighted to enter into our second joint venture with Development Securities following our successful acquisition of Crown Glass Shopping Centre in Nailsea 21 months ago.”
Recently Development Securities also acquired an office and retail property in West London in conjunction with Brockton Capital.
The property, in Kensington Church Street on Notting Hill, was bought for GBP 47.5 million. The block totals approximately 1 acre and consists of Newcombe House, a 14-storey office building that includes surface parking for 55 cars, as well as 13 retail units.
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Weiner said of the acquisition: “The Kensington Church Street block is in an absolutely prime location and provides an extremely flexible built form, with a number of strategies for repositioning and adding value. Having already let a vacant floor within the office tower, we think there is potential for further office lettings.”
Editor’s notes: The tower had been named after the Bristol-born slave trader Edward Colston.
On June 7th 2020, in response to ongoing George Floyd protests in the UK, the nearby statue of Edward Colston was pulled down and thrown into Bristol Harbour.
On June 11th, the ‘Colston Tower’ lettering was removed by the new landlords, AEW.
Resolution Property purchased the building in 2014 and carried out a comprehensive refurbishment in 2016. AEW then purchased the property from Resolution Property for GBP 17.5 million in 2017.
On November 26th, the building’s new name, The Beacon Tower, was announced.
AEW had worked with a branding agency and had put forward new names to the 20 office tenants at the building to vote on.
As of June 2023, a suite making up part of the 4th floor was available to lease offering 2,218 square feet. It was being extensively refurbished at the time and would be available for occupation in August 2023.
Also due to open in the Summer of 2023 was Desklodge’s space at BeaconTower – offering 18,000 square feet of office and coworking space to businesses seeking flexible alternatives to leasing office space including private offices, dedicated coworking desks, hot desks and meeting rooms.
As of June 2023, tenants at The Beacon Tower in Bristol include Newcross Healthcare which rents two floors at the property.