Manchester city centre office building 11 St James’s Square has been bought by Beech Holdings for £5.27 million.

 

Beech Holdings agreed the deal to buy the 22,374 sq ft property on John Dalton Street from Readycount, a subsidiary of financial services outfit WH Ireland group Plc.

The company will convert the upper four floors into up to 48 high quality low carbon residential apartments.

While WH Ireland staff will remain at 11 St James’s Square for at least the next five months, the retail units on the ground floor will be unaffected and continue to trade as normal.

Stephen Beech, founder and owner of Beech Holdings – which includes its businesses Beech Construction, Beech Properties and lettings branch Manchester Apartments – said:

“I’m really pleased to announce that we have bought 11 St James’s Square, which is located in the heart of Manchester city centre’s prime financial and professional district.

“Getting the deal over the line has required a lot of hard work from our acquisitions team led by Justin Rouse.

“We agreed terms just prior to Christmas and worked hard to conclude what was a fairly complex transaction in four weeks over Christmas and New Year.”

He added: “Beech Holdings is headquartered on Oxford Street in Manchester city centre and our front-of- house Manchester Apartments lettings branch currently has 7,500 qualified leads.

“We are turning large numbers of young professionals and graduates away every day at the moment. This latest acquisition will go some way to increasing the supply of much-needed residential apartments across the city region.

“It also gives more highly skilled young people the chance to move into the city centre and contribute to Manchester’s growing economy, and will help relieve pressure on the city’s road and transport infrastructure due to more people living close to their place of work.”

11 St James’s Square is based 300 metres from St Peter’s Metrolink Station and close to both Deansgate and Spinningfields.

The deal to buy it comes after Beech Holdings last week announced the creation of 20 new jobs, with headcount set to rise to 120 across the firm’s portfolio of businesses by the end of April this year.

WHR and Kuits Solicitors acted for Beech Holdings in the acquisition, while JLL acted for WH Ireland.