Telecom House sold for more than £3m – new owners will turn it into apartments

The news comes just days after it was revealed that a pair of property investor brothers have bought the Carillion House building a short distance away in the city centre.

No price tag has been revealed for that deal but it was on the market for around £3m.

Telecom House, a self-contained office building on Church Street, overlooking the Penn Road roundabout on the city centre ring road, was placed on the market last year with a guide price of £2,950,000.

The former main offices of BT in the city went on the market last year.

Property consultancy Harris Lamb was instructed by owners Telereal Trillium to sell the 84,876 sq ft property, later inviting best bids from potential buyers further to high levels of interest.

Plans had already been submitted for more than 100 apartments under permitted development rights prior to the six-storey building being placed on the market.

Inspired Asset Management, a company that normally concentrates on residential properties in London, won the bidding contest for Telecom House with an offer in excess of £3 million.

Tom Morley, of Harris Lamb's agency team, who completed the deal, said: "IAM has purchased it as an investment, and intends to convert it into apartments, which will then be leased."

In May Inspired secured a green light in advance from city council planners to plans to turn Telecom House into either a mix of 156 studio, one and two-bedroom flats or 282 studio apartments.

Mr Morley added: “This opportunity was the largest office disposal within the city in years, and we had a huge amount of interest, predominantly from parties looking to benefit from permitted development rights, which would allow the successful buyer to convert the offices to residential use without a formal planning application.

“The majority of interested parties were from the south east, where the market is currently very saturated and extremely competitive, thereby throwing the Midlands into the spotlight as a prime site for investment.

“Further to a call for best and final bids, Inspired Asset Management successfully secured the building for a fee in excess of £3 million.".

With 70 car parking spaces, the building is said to be "ideally suited" to residential conversion, sited at the front of the Ring Road St Johns in Wolverhampton city centre within easy walking distance of the city’s leisure and shopping areas.

It is also on the edge of the £55 million Westside leisure development, which is due to get under way this year.

Tom Morley added: “Telereal Trillium is delighted with the interest the opportunity attracted and with the final figure achieved for the property.”