Time to set sale at Bakers Quay
Investors beware, the gangplank is about to be pulled for those keen to get on board the £20 million first phase redevelopment of Gloucester Quays. It is easy to see the vision for Bakers Quay now – to transform the long neglected historic warehousing and buildings that made up the then derelict canal- side quarter into new homes and then some. Developers Rokeby Merchant had fully pre-let to tenants Premier Inn, Brewers Fayre and Costa Coffee before it even began. But it takes a brave person to take a punt and invest early in the flats which became part of the transformational scheme, driven by the firm forged to take on the task. This immediately post-Brexit vote. But invest people did – in the one and two bed luxury waterside apartments that now make up the Provender scheme, aside from the 5,339 sq ft of ground floor restaurant accommodation. All 46 flats have sold or let by the end of the first year – many immediately, with anecdotes of some
changing hands very quickly at a tidy profit for some shrewd investors. Most are in it for the longer term, confident the high spec modestly priced waterside dwellings were a safe investment, and possibly one day will become homes they move into themselves. “It has been a tremendous success. I would say there is a really good mix of owner and rented. I would say between 30 and 40 per cent are investment,” said Adrian Goodall, the public face of Rokeby Merchants, the company forged from his own business, Rokeby Developments and Michael Chicken’s Merchant Place Developments, to drive through both phases of the multi-million pound waterside rebirth. Mr Goodall’s considerable track record at such projects places him at the centre of Newcastle Quayside’s rebirth in the North East and, before that, a similar major Docklands project in London, which possibly explains how the scheme many once thought impossible has been able to not just take off – but fly. Christmas will mark a line in the sand for Rokeby Merchants, as it closes the transformational phase
12 | December 2019 | www. punchline-gloucester .com
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