Work begins on £1.25m Sheffield office suite development

Work has begun on a £1.25m refurbishment project in Sheffield that will offer SMEs some much needed city centre office suites.

Manchester’s MCR Property Group purchased the 11-storey St James House in Sheffield’s Cathedral Quarter earlier this year.

Sheffield office of Knight Frank and Fearnie Greaves were appointed to joint market the site, and MCR has now started to transform the 57,000 sq ft building into prime suites with fully refurbished communal areas and reception, new windows and redecoration.

The project has already secured new tenants Green Eco Grants and PK Education, with further interest from other occupiers wanting to invest in the suites.

St James House, home to businesses including Teaching Personnel, IBM and Counter Context, is located between the Fargate shopping area and the professional office areas of Campo Lane and Paradise Square, alongside popular office developments including Fountain Precinct and The Balance.

Suites are available from 734 sq ft upwards.

Charles Denby, asset manager at MCR, said: “St James House was an attractive proposal given its prime city centre location, income profile and future potential, with a fantastic opportunity to add value.

“Our strategy includes a complete refurbishment of the communal areas and office suites, replacement of the windows with modern efficient units plus improvements to the external ground floor elevation and approach to the building.”

Charles added: “These deals signal our growing appetite to acquire high quality assets in the North of England as the commercial property sector shows signs of improvement.”

Rebecca Schofield, partner at Knight Frank said: “The new St James House suites certainly help fill the shortfall of good quality, smaller office stock in the city centre. There are very few sub 3,000 sq ft, broadband-ready suites suitable for businesses such as recruitment, IT and media companies wanting to ’plug and play”.

“The refurbishment has already meant that we are relocating tenants within the building wanting to expand and attracted new tenants into the building.”