Carillion’s Wolverhampton HQ up for sale for £3 million

That means it has halved in value since it last changed hands just two years ago.

Property agents Bulleys and JLL have been jointly appointed to market the property at 84 Salop Street, which is currently known as Carillion House.

It was not owned by Carillion; the company leased it for around £440,000 a year. It was bought by an unnamed private investor for £6.165m January 2016.

Less than 220 people are left working at the offices out of the 460 originally based there when the infrastructure giant collapsed in January.

It became Carillion’s headquarters in 2015 after the lease expired on its former Peal Street home, and around 600 staff were based there at one point.

The building is offered for freehold sale and is due to be available with vacant possession, although Carillion and its liquidators PwC are currently in occupation, continuing to pay rent of £437,405 pa for both the main and additional site.

PwC are working for the Official Receiver as special managers of the liquidation, with support from Carillion HR and admin staff at Carillion House.

Those workers are steadily being whittled away as the liquidation proceeds, although they are expected to be among the last to lost their jobs when the process finally comes to an end.

The detached building is located on a 0.65 acre site next to the Chapel Ash Island in Wolverhampton city centre, next door to the £55 million Westside leisure development.

There is around 37,338 sq ft of office space over six floors, with 32 car parking spaces on site and direct access onto the A4150 dual carriageway. The property comes with a nearby car park with another 58 spaces on Stephenson Street.

Noel Muscutt, partner at Bulleys, said: “This is a fantastic opportunity to acquire an eye-catching office block in a prominent location that will soon benefit from proximity to the Westside leisure development.

“The offices were comprehensively refurbished in 2015 and provide open plan accommodation that would suit occupation as a whole, on a floor by floor or part-floor basis. The building is close to Wolverhampton’s principal city centre business, retail and leisure offer and will be an attractive place to be based.”

Ben Kelly, director at JLL added: “We are seeking offers in excess of £3,000,000 for the freehold interest, which reflects a low capital value of around £80 per sq ft.”

The adjacent £55 million leisure-led Westside scheme encompasses land between Penn Road Island and Salop Street, including the current School Street and Peel Street car parks and the area around Market Square. Phase one of the development which will deliver a multiplex cinema, 50,000 square feet of additional leisure space, new restaurants covering 40,000 square feet, a 100-plus bed hotel and a multi-storey car park.

Construction phase one is expected to be complete by early 2020, and then phase two will deliver more than 300 new city centre homes and 50,000 square feet of retail and leisure space by 2022. The building dates back to 1977, when it was built by Wolverhampton firm AM Griffiths & Sons as the new “Staffordshire House” headquarters for the Stafforshire Building Society.

The Staffs was later taken over by the Portman, which then became part of the Nationwide Building Society, which finally moved out and left the building empty. Carillion moved in a year later, in 2008 and the building became its official headquaters in 2015.