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New infrastructure work gets underway at Old Town Dock, Newport
11/05/12
Newport Unlimited has commissioned advanced infrastructure and landscaping work on the final sites at Old Town Dock which will complete the development of some 45 acres of land.
Newport Unlimited is investing £600,000 in preparing the final 10 acres of the Old Town Dock site to encourage and stimulate new development opportunities.
The work will involve hard landscaping to the dock edge and will provide a formal setting for new development activity. It is expected that the work will finish in June this year.
The infrastructure works were designed by Gillespies and Stuart Hogg Property Consultants have been appointed as commercial agents. Interest has already been expressed in the site by a number of different developers and it is likely that this will now intensify following the announcement that the 31,000 sq m Friar’s Walk scheme by Queensberry Real Estate has been given the go-ahead, Debenhams has come on board as the anchor tenant, and the marketing of the site gets underway.
Hamish Munro, head of regeneration at Newport Unlimited, said: "This is prime piece of development land, located on the regenerated riverfront area and in the southern sector of the city centre.
"We’re keen to make the land as attractive to developers as possible, which is why we are investing in these infrastructure works, so that development can pretty much start as soon as contracts are exchanged.
"We’ve talked to a number of potential developers and a good level of interest has been expressed in the site. The fact that the nearby Friar’s Walk retail scheme was recently granted planning consent has added further strength to the potential of the site, and once the work has been completed, I’m sure we will receive strong interest."
Old Town Dock is an area that stretches from Southern Distributor Road in the south to George Street in the north, and is currently owned by Newport Unlimited and Newport City Council in a Joint Venture.
It is an area steeped in history. Town Dock, as it was originally known, was built in 1842 taking coal from the Brecon and Monmouthshire Canal and shipping it around the world, at a time when Newport’s docks were doing more trade than any other port in the UK. The lock at Old Town Dock was claimed to be the largest in the world at the time. The dock was filled in in 1930, after the larger Alexandra Dock was constructed and following a downturn in trade in the 1920s.
The reclamation of Old Town Dock was one of the first regeneration projects undertaken by Newport Unlimited in 2004. Since then, the area has been transformed with a £200 million redevelopment programme, with residential developments and a riverside park.
Redrow has constructed a mixture of 500 duplex and two-bed apartments at its £50 million Alexandra Gate development, while Fairlake has achieved an impressive Code 5 for its sustainable development of 101 one to two-bed apartments and two, three and four-bed homes. Westmark has developed 64 high quality residential units on the south side of Jacks Pill, and students have already moved in to the 441 apartments by Opal next to George Street Bridge.
Hamish Munro added: "Much work has been done regenerating the waterfront and reconnecting it with the city centre.
"We’re now looking for a development partner to come on board to complete the transformation of the final sites at Old Town Dock."
Stuart Hogg added: "Our job is to try and ensure that the site is developed in a high quality way and we will be looking for developers to maximise the potential of this strategic regeneration opportunity."
Old Town Dock is just one part of the multi-faceted regeneration programme that is being rolled out by Newport Unlimited in conjunction with its partners, Newport City Council and the Welsh Government.
By 2020, it is hoped that the regeneration programme will have created 12,000 new jobs, generated £0.8 billion of private investment, completed 3,000 new homes and created one million sq ft of new office floor space.