Member Article

Online flooring retailer is latest to sign up to Portobello Trade Park

Ravensworth Property Developments has secured a new tenant for its £7m Portobello Trade Park development in Gateshead.

Online flooring retailer, Connection Flooring Ltd, which operates the brands Direct Wood Flooring and Grass Direct, has signed a 10-year lease on a 6,879sqft unit.

The new premises will be used primarily as a trade counter for B2B sales, but also for the storage and distribution of its flooring products and artificial grass.

Portobello Trade Park is located on a 6.5 acre site immediately adjacent to the A1(M) at Birtley and comprises 15 high quality, light industrial units ranging in size from 195sqm (2,100sqft) to 2,137sqm (23,000sqft).

The newly established trade park has attracted a strong line up of tenants including Complete Office Solutions, The Bathroom Cladding Shop, Excel RAC Ltd and Polar Front Ltd.

Connection Flooring Ltd, which already has several warehouses and an office in Durham, has taken a lease on the new premises as part of its growth strategy to create the company’s first trade store to complement its online presence.

Dan Foskett, managing director at DWF said: “Portobello Trade Park is ideally located for our first trade store next to the A1, which provides high visibility and excellent accessibility. Our long term plan is to continue along this path and open a series of trade stores across the country.

Having these new premises will strengthen our brand presence and provide another outlet, besides our websites, where customers can see and feel our products and chat face-to-face with our expert staff.

We have already created three new jobs at the trade store, but there will be more to follow within our office and our warehouses to coincide with the growth of the company and to support the store.“

Geoff Clark, development manager at Ravensworth Property Developments said: “It is great to see the development filling up with a good variety of tenants. In addition to being close to completing a deal on units 5 & 6, we also have terms out on the last two remaining large units, which upon completion will see the park 80% let.”

Portobello Trade Park was partially funded by The North East Local Enterprise Partnership, who agreed to provide a £982,000 loan from the Growing Places North East Investment Fund, the scheme also received £2.75 million from the European Regional Development Fund.

HTA Real Estate and Naylors are joint letting agents on the scheme.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Rebecca Taylor PR .