Columbia Threadneedle Real Estate has acquired phase two and three of Merry Hill Retail Park in Brierley Hill and Phoenix Retail Park in Corby on behalf of separate client funds for undisclosed sums.
Merry Hill Retail Park (pictured) comprises circa 197,000 sq ft of retail warehouse and restaurant space on a site that extends to almost 15 acres. Anchor tenants include The Range, Currys, Wren Kitchens, DFS and Pets at Home.
Phoenix Retail Park offers 118,200 sq ft of retail warehouse accommodation with anchor tenants including M&S Foodhall, Matalan, The Range, Currys, Next and The Food Warehouse.
Tom Elviss, fund manager at Columbia Threadneedle Real Estate, said: “The simultaneous acquisition of both phases two and three at Merry Hill Retail Park from two separate vendors constitutes a majority holding at one of the UK’s dominant retail warehouse clusters in the West Midlands. This presents a significant opportunity to maximise the assets’ potential under single ownership.
“Phoenix Retail Park is set to benefit from Corby’s sizeable residential development pipeline, which brings with it a catchment growth proposition that will allow us to enhance the tenant mix further. At both locations, we intend to draw on our strong retailer relationships and scale in the retail warehouse market as we seek to proactively asset manage the holdings to deliver strong returns for our investors.”
Harvey Spack Field acted for Columbia Threadneedle Real Estate on the Merry Hill purchase and Morgan Williams represented the vendors. Savills advised Columbia Threadneedle on the Phoenix Retail Park acquisition and Knight Frank represented the vendor.
