Wykeland Properties - Retail Sale - Grimsby Europarc
Date: 28 Jan 2008
Haith's Seeds, the UK's premier bird seed manufacturers, have bought a 30,000 sq ft speculative office and production building at Wykeland Properties' pioneering Grimsby Europarc.
Haith's has been based in Park Street, Cleethorpes, since the business was founded in 1937 by the grandfather of the current owner David Haith, but are now moving to Europarc early this year following the fit-out.
Wykeland speculatively developed the 30,000 sq ft building using local contractor Rok Topcon. The construction has been split into two phases, holding back the offices and floors so that they could be designed for a specific end user. Haith's therefore had the time-benefit of a completed shell but the flexibility to design an internal layout to their specific operation without the costs this usually absorbs on fully completed buildings.
Haith's have invested £3.5 million in this project overall and will be bringing 35 jobs with them from Cleethorpes.
Dominic Gibbons, a director of Hull-based Wykeland, commented: "Wykeland and our partners Yorkshire Forward are extremely pleased that Haith's Seeds, an indigenous business to Grimsby, has decided to expand their business by moving to Europarc. Europarc has always prided itself on its appeal to inward investors to the area but we are even more satisfied when local businesses can grow and develop on the development.
"This is a great success story for Europarc and highlights Haith's vision and confidence for the future growth of their expanding business," he added.
Haith's originally dealt in seed for pigeon fanciers and for the cage and aviary bird market, but for the last 20 years or so its products have increasingly been aimed at consumers feeding garden birds.
The huge growth in the popularity of feeding garden birds and Haith's success in producing very high quality products for the market were the reasons behind the move to bigger premises at Europarc.
Director Simon King explained: "We've always been very successful at mail-order and the emergence of on-line shopping has also helped us grow our business - in particular on the products for garden birds. Another thing which has helped us was teaming up with television personality Bill Oddie, who has endorsed our mail order and online range for a number of years."
Although David Haith and Simon King had considered other properties in North East Lincolnshire, Europarc quickly became the only real contender when they looked at what it had to offer.
David Haith commented: "When we really drilled down to what new premises would need to give us - both in terms of capacity and to meet our commitment on sustainability - Europarc seemed a perfect choice.
"In fact it wasn't just the building itself and everything it would give us, but the whole philosophy of the development around sustainability even with issues such as environmentally friendly transport being dealt with. In addition to that, the facilities at Europarc's Innovation Centre are excellent and we've already held our first meeting there," he added.
Europarc is a 110-acre business park currently been developed by Wykeland in partnership with Yorkshire Forward. To date 700,000 sq ft has been developed and over 2000 jobs created on the site.
Owen Holder, of property consultants Knight Frank in Leeds, commented: "This is a gem of a development and is, without doubt, one of the finest business parks in the region. It is the fastest-moving scheme in the Humber and is an excellent example of how Yorkshire Forward's Partnership Programme can work. There is no doubt that Wykeland Properties should be congratulated on a first-class development"
Haith's office and production premises at Grimsby Europarc
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