Work has been completed on a new mixed-use business centre on the Festival Park site at Ebbw Vale, South Wales.
Owners Birmingham-based Mercia Real Estate Ltd have created 24 industrial units totalling 84,202 sq ft for local and national businesses and logistic operators on the 70 acre site, which was chosen in 1992 to be the last British Garden Festival site.
The 24 units range in size from 958 sq ft to almost 12,000 sq ft and offer a range of business uses including light industrial, trade counter and storage units.
The redevelopment work has transformed the site from a retail park to a multi-use business facility modifying existing units, removing their canopies, and recladding and reroofing the refurbished units. The site has an improved access and flow to accommodate industrial operators including the central walkway being resurfaced to create a spine access road. In addition, the landlord has undertaken a comprehensive remodelling of the site which included dismantling specific units to create more yard space, parking, roads, and paths.
Mercia Real Estate acquired the unoccupied site in 2021 and was granted planning permission last year to go ahead with the changes. Chief executive officer Samuel Clark said: “The much-needed redevelopment of Festival Park provides an attractive proposition to new and existing businesses, and provides a range of unit sizes to enable successful small businesses to expand over time without ever needing to leave the site to find larger premises.”
The company has appointed the Cardiff office of global property consultancy Knight Frank to attract tenants to the completed centre. Rhys Price, associate in Knight Frank’s Industrial & Logistics division in Wales, said: “This is a great opportunity that is addressing the lack of refurbished, quality business units in the region within close proximity to the Heads of the Valley. The development provides a broad range of occupational space that is attracting strong interest from a range of potential occupiers already.
“The Festival Park site has a long history and the landlord’s imaginative redevelopment of Festival Park, coupled with a willingness to agree leases quickly, will help bring the site back to life and this will no doubt be an attractive proposition to local and national businesses.”
Ebbw Vale was chosen as the last British Garden Festival site in 1992 because of the waste land which had been the British Steel steel and tin works, which had been partly demolished in the early 1980s. The National Garden Festival ran from May until October 1992 and attracted over two million people.
The site subsequently became home to a shopping centre hosting fairground attractions, plant exhibitions and over 30 shops but has been unused for several years.
