Online retailer The Hut Group has pre-let a 690,000 sq ft retail distribution centre in Warrington on a 15-year lease.
Located on the Omega South distribution park at junction 8 of the M62, the site is being constructed to consolidate The Hut’s four UK distribution units. The Hut Group specialises in the retail of health and beauty products, with an emphasis on sports nutrition. Its brands include myprotein.com, myvitamins.com and probikekit.com.
Omega Warrington secured planning permission for the site in October, which will sit within the ‘Zone 7’, which itself was granted planning permission in May for 2.1m sq ft of logistics and manufacturing space.
LondonMetric Property purchased the site for £47.5m, via forward funding contract with Omega Warrington. Construction on the 41-acre site, will be let to The Hut Group for £3.77m per annum, is set to commence in January, with an autumn completion date.
Andrew Jones, CEO of LondonMetric, said: “Our distribution development pipeline alone now extends to circa 2.5m sq ft of which 1.7m sq ft will be delivered during the course of 2015. This is 100 per cent pre-let and will deliver a total rent of over £9m per annum off average leases of over 20 years.”
As part of the transaction LondonMetric has agreed that The Hut has the option to acquire the freehold investment 12 months from practical completion.
