Leeds based property developer expands office to ‘accommodate’ recruitment drive

Pickard Properties, the Leeds based family-owned property developer, landlord and lettings specialist, is expanding its head office in Headingley to support its growing business activities.

With a portfolio of more than 250 student and professional let properties across the city, together with a number of significant property developments underway and in the pipeline, the business is adding a further 1,800 sq ft to its office.

Having created a new structure for the business in the past 12 months, with the creation of specialist teams, along with a major digitisation project, which enables remote working from sites and properties, the additional space on the second floor of the building on North Lane will bring “much needed” extra capacity.

The space will enable Pickard Properties to increase its headcount, growing its 20-strong team with plans to recruit an additional 10 people in 2023-2024. These roles will be across its customer relationship, maintenance, and accounts teams as well as its lettings hub, which works with both students and professional rental clients.

In addition to providing additional space to create dedicated areas for its teams, the expansion will also feature new meeting rooms and breakout areas.

Alongside its extensive student portfolio, Pickard Properties is a “highly active” developer, bringing forward schemes which, once completed, it retains to offer for rent. This includes the “prestigious” Spinning Acres private rental development in Far Headingley, a former student accommodation site, which has historic links to the city’s textile industry.

Miles Pickard, director of Pickard Properties, commented: “The planned expansion of our head office demonstrates how the business has evolved and grown in recent years.

“We are a cornerstone of the student accommodation market, increasing our presence as a landlord and service provider, while also expanding our activities in the development of schemes in and around Leeds.

“This led to the need to restructure our business into dedicated teams to provide the best possible service to student and private tenants. We placed a huge focus on digitalisation to enable our staff to work effectively from our properties and sites.

“This was a huge project, which we completed during the pandemic and has given us the platform to focus on our physical infrastructure, which will not only provide a more comfortable and interesting working environment, but also the capacity to create more jobs to meet demand.”

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