Cool Tech Firms Turn Up The Temperature On Manchester Offices
If you want to know what is coming next in Manchester real estate, read the tech scale-up news.
Two Manchester-based tech scale-ups have been selected as part of Tech Nation’s growth programme.
Arctic Shores, an anti-bias recruitment business, and Pimberly, a retail tech business that delivers an immersive, hyper-personalised, omnichannel product experience for millions of products, will be part of the Upscale 5.0 programme, helping them grow into the unicorns of tomorrow.
The selection of potentially fast-growing Arctic Shores and Pimberley comes as the city’s property sector turns its love affair with the tech sector into a long-term relationship. Growth among existing occupiers, like coding boot camp business Northcoders, which has expanded from 6.5K SF in Hermes’ Federation House to 10K SF at Bruntwood’s Manchester Technology Centre, Oxford Road, is driving the market.
The historic Bonded Warehouse at Allied London’s 2M SF Enterprise City is the latest new workspace looking for tech tenants.
The iconic 1860s warehouse is within the original Granada Studios estate, in the heart of Manchester city centre, and has been redesigned and reconfigured. It now houses 10K SF of studios and 67K SF of workspace along with 13K SF of retail and leisure.
Appealing to the tech demographic, there are social spaces on every floor, a space for wellness and fitness, a brewery and taproom, a Halcyon gin bar by Manchester gin distillers Zymurgorium, and an all-day/night coffee lounge for working and socialising called Bonded Social.
The Bonded Warehouse will also be home to Exchange, Tech Nation's new digital and technology programme for the UK’s next best startups. Its mission is to support 2,000 ambitious individuals within the tech sector, over a 15-year period. Exchange is funded by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport, and supported by Manchester City Council.
Bonded Warehouse is managed by All Work & Social, the work and social spaces division of the Allied London portfolio.
Existing landlords are rethinking space with tech in mind. Leeds-based property investor and car park operator Town Centre Securities is in the midst of a £2M refurbishment programme at the Ducie House office building at Piccadilly Basin, part of the tech-fuelled Northern Quarter.
The 33K SF former petticoat factory was acquired by TCS in 2018 to extend its Piccadilly Basin portfolio and enjoys an established and mixed tenant base from fashion designers and record labels to design agencies. It has also been the base to a range of iconic Manchester bands over the past 20 years including Simply Red and 808 State, as well as companies ANS, UK Fast, Ask Developments and Ear to the Ground.
The rethink includes the reconfiguration of existing smaller suites on the first, second and third floors, which offers potential occupiers larger floor space from 2.2K SF to 4K SF. The idea is to facilitate organic growth of current tenants within the Ducie House community. Work on-site will complete this summer.
