Greggs to open at new £20m business estate in Great Barr
A new Greggs bakery will open in Great Barr as work to transform a huge brownfield site into a 10-unit industrial estate nears completion.
Prime Park, situated next to Lidl on Hamstead Hill, will open in early 2024, with Greggs and self-storage operator SureStore already confirmed as two of the 10 tenants.
The site itself sits where the former GKN factory used to be on Old Walsall Road before that was torn down in 2014. Supermarket giant Sainsbury’s had planning approval to take over the land back in 2013 but pulled the plug on building a new store citing a ‘significant change’ in the grocery market.
Fast-forward to 2023 and construction work on the new £20m Prime Park industrial estate is well under way. Several of the units have already been pre-let or are under offer to occupiers including self-storage operator SureStore which has taken the largest single building of 17,229 sq ft. Bakery chain Greggs has agreed terms for the smallest unit of 1,690 sq ft at the front of the estate.
The project is being led by Legal & General Investment Management’s specialist industrial fund IPIF and its development partner Prime Box. Halesowen-based contractor A&H Construction is building the scheme.
Jonathan Holland, senior fund manager with LGIM Real Assets, said: “It’s really satisfying to be transforming this redundant site into a thriving development with high-quality floor space that will bring inward investment to the area and new jobs for local people.”
Birmingham property agencies KWB and Johnson Fellows are jointly marketing the space to occupiers. Kenny Allan, KWB’s director of industrial agency, said: “The fact that several of the units were pre-let or under offer pre-construction suggest that the remaining units won’t be available for long. There continues to be huge demand for industrial space in Birmingham and the West Midlands.”
