The South Yorkshire JESSICA Fund has completed development loans totalling £16.85m for schemes in Sheffield and Doncaster.
The first transaction comprises funding of £8.8m to support the development of a 21,000 sq ft Grade A office scheme on Norfolk Street in Sheffield city centre, and the second transaction comprises funding of £8.05m to support the delivery of a 83,000 sq ft industrial scheme at First Avenue, GatewayEast in Doncaster. Both projects are located within the South Yorkshire Investment Zone.
The two loans take total funding deployed by the SY JESSICA Fund to more than £100m since CBRE’s lending team has been managing the programme.
Oliver Coppard, mayor of South Yorkshire Mayoral Combined Authority said: “South Yorkshire was the first investment zone to be launched in the country and we have invested across the region to support business and encourage investment. These two investments by our JESSICA fund together with the one at Rockingham Business Park in Barnsley reflects the region’s need to provide high quality employment space to enable our businesses to modernise and grow and also attract new companies to the region. We will continue to work with the JESSICA Fund to ensure South Yorkshire continues to have the business space needed to meet our aspirations for good and inclusive growth.”
Andrew Antoniades, head of lending at CBRE, added: “The fund was one of our first lending mandates and we are delighted that working together with the excellent SY team, we have met the milestone of £100m deployed for SY JESSICA. Behind the milestone is 1.7m sq ft of employment space that has contributed to the economic strength and regeneration in the region.
“These recent transactions demonstrate the impact that investment can have in unlocking development and accelerating growth across the region. As projects within South Yorkshire’s Investment Zone, both schemes support ambitions to boost productivity and create sustainable economic opportunities. The fund was one of our cornerstone lending mandates and forms part of our portfolio of £3bn of lending across the UK.”
