Sainsbury’s Beckenham re-development

Montagu Evans acted as disposal agents for the sale of a town centre supermarket and car park, on behalf of CBRE Global Investors.

The property comprises a 44,993 sq ft purpose built supermarket with 277 car parking spaces, with 6.5 years of unexpired income. The property had potential for a residential redevelopment and was sold to a developer who intends to redevelop the site when the existing lease expires.

The client faced numerous challenges including whether the tenant intended to renew their lease, the risk that the property might become vacant when the existing lease expired and the lack of specific planning and development expertise to realise the development upside from a disposal.

Montagu Evans engaged with the tenant to confirm their future occupational intentions, whilst assembling an internal team of planners, townscape and heritage consultants, development consultants, residential and retail investment agents to prepare a potential residential scheme that supported the marketing process.

The comprehensive marketing campaign targeted supermarket investors, as well as residential developers, and we were able to generate competitive tension that led to sale price that was above expectations.

The client was able to dispose of an asset that posed significant risk of becoming vacant for a price that was significantly above the book value of the asset.