Warren Private Clients has agreed in principle to join a UK and a Canadian company in the development of a major town centre in Chester which will have an end value of over €700 million.
The development will cover an area of 11.3 acres fronting on to three of the city's high streets and will take over four years to complete.
The Northgate Quarter will have 37,150sq m (400,000sq ft) of retail space in interlinked streetscapes, with shopping on two levels. There will also be a wide range of leisure and residential facilities, as well as bars, restaurants, a performing arts centre, market hall and the city's main transport interchange, including a 650-space multistorey car park.
The House of Frazer is to anchor the scheme with a store of 13,935 sq m (150,000 sq ft). There will also be four other large units of between 2,787 and 3,716 sq m (30,000 to 40,000sq ft) and 70 individual shops.
The current Zone A rents on Chester's high street of £210 to £230 per square foot have considerable growth potential, according to local experts.
Chester City Council assembled the site of over 11 acres along Eastgate Street, Northgate Street and Watergate Street and will be passing it on to the three developers at cost price. Part of the scheme will be wrapped around the City Hall.
The lead developer will be ING Real Estate, one of Britain's largest property developers and managers, which is to retain 20 per cent ownership of the scheme.
Warren Private Clients was apparently invited into the consortium several months ago, along with a Canadian fund which has not been identified.
Chester is regarded as the spiritual home of shopping in Britain and boasts some of the oldest shop frontages in the world. The widely used Tudor style will be replicated in some of the new buildings. One of the unique features of the city is that it has two-tiered shopping walkways dating back to 1331.
Warren Private Clients was set up by accountant Kevin Warren and lawyer Enda Connolly in 2002 and holds over €2.5 billion worldwide in investment properties.
Notable acquisitions have included the Goldman Sachs headquarters in London for €256 million, an investment that is now showing a return of 6.75 per cent. It has also invested more than $500 million in commercial property in the New York area, including the Unilever headquarters in Connecticut.
Last year it bought The Park, a large retail facility in Carrickmines, for €103 million and later spent €197 million on acquiring a 50 per cent stake in Whitewater shopping centre in Newbridge, Co Kildare. Both investments are showing yields of 4.5 per cent.
