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"Barclays Commercial Bank is moving its main Midlands headquarters to the prestigious Snowhill development in central Birmingham.
It has acquired over 98,000 sq ft of new office space from Ballymore, the international property development company, and will bring together 1,000 sales and operations staff from Barclays Commercial Bank division in the Midlands, currently located across the Greater Birmingham area. A 15-year lease has been agreed on the office space, which forms part of Ballymore’s one million sq ft mixed-use scheme, set to become one of the largest redevelopment schemes in Birmingham. Barclays, advised by Jones Lang LaSalle, will jointly occupy One Snowhill along with KPMG.
Barclays will occupy four floors from levels three to six of One Snowhill, the first phase of the state-of-the-art, mixed use development next to Snow Hill Station that includes conferencing facilities, restaurants, bars and Birmingham’s only five-star hotel. Barclays’ offices will also feature a dedicated customer reception and meeting suite.
One Snowhill is scheduled to be completed in March 2009, and it is anticipated that Barclays Commercial Bank will occupy the site in late 2009.
Jones Lang LaSalle advised Barclays. Ballymore was represented by CBRE and Colliers CRE.
Barclays Commercial Bank provides relationship banking to 151,000 larger and medium business customers in the UK (£1m to £1bn turnover). Customers are served by a network of relationship and industry sector specialist managers who provide local access to an extensive range of products and services, as well as offering business information and support. Customers are also offered access to the productsand expertise of other businesses in the Group, particularly Barclays Capital and Barclaycard. Barclays Asset and Sales Finance – a specialist business within Barclays Commercial Bank - provides customers with asset financing and leasing solutions.
Ballymore is an international property development, investment and property management group, specializing in large scale mixed use developments in urban areas. The company has principal offices in Dublin and London together with offices in Slovakia, the Czech Republic, France and Hungary. Founded 25 years ago by Sean Mulryan, Chairman of Ballymore, the company has grown rapidly in recent years.
Ballymore now has more than 50 projects in various stages of development in Europe and around the world. Once completed, Snowhill will boast Birmingham’s tallest residential tower, the city’s first five-star hotel (a new Westin Hotel & Spa to be operated by Starwood Hotels & Resorts) together with the two office buildings at One and Two Snowhill, which together will provide some 600,000 sq ft of prime commercial space. A range of restaurants, bars and quality retail arranged around new open public spaces such as landscaped squares, tree-lined boulevards and piazzas will also be created within the development.
The pre-let agreement with Barclays follows a highly successful marketing campaign that has secured a number of prestigious occupiers for the major mixed use scheme in the centre of Birmingham, including KPMG, which has pre-let 120,000 sq ft in One Snowhill, and law firm Wragge & Co, who recently agreed to 250,000 sq ft of space in Two Snowhill – the largest pre-let in Birmingham city centre" (CS della Società)
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