Vail Williams latest client event – Showcasing Crawley’s impressive Manor Royal Business District.
Scorching weather greeted 60 Vail Williams VIP guests to the Gatwick Region Summer reception and Thought Leadership tour.
The venue was the stunning new Harwoods luxury car showroom on the Manor Royal business park in Crawley.
Our Gatwick team were keen to show off the burgeoning Manor Royal estate and led two coach tours, each hosted by Steve Sawyer, head of the Manor Royal Business Improvement District to do just that. This provided an interesting talking point for the drinks reception that followed accompanied by beautiful ‘afternoon tea’ themed canapes.
Click here to see a montage of photos from the event.
The extent of the Manor Royal estate and impressive list of occupiers and new projects always surprises visitors to Crawley so we thought it would be useful to summarise it below.
Harwoods Jaguar Land Rover
Originally purchased as a 10 acre former BOC Edwards site. Harwoods have created an impressive 60,000 sq ft facility – a 3 fold expansion from where they were. Currently the largest site of its kind in the group. Combines Jaguar and Land Rover under one roof.
Space Gatwick
Rear 4 acres were sold on behalf of Harwoods to London Metric for 116,k sq ft industrial development.
Principal Park
A 30 acre site. Former GSK site now Digital Realty. The plot was bought for £9m in 2011 and was described as the largest land purchase in the South East at that time. Digital Realty provide data centre solutions. They have plans to build three data centres on this site.
Crawley Business Quarter – One of the principle office locations in Manor Royal. It was granted consent in 1994 and Virgin Atlantic made this their HQ in 1997 – moving from their former Office building to a new facility here called VHQ built by Abstract and co-located with Virgin Holidays.
Doosan Power Systems moved here from the town centre. Global leaders in the power and energy sector. They design and manufacture turbines and are also involved in advanced steam generation, waste-to-energy and nuclear.
Next door to Doosan are Deloitte who recent co-located staff from a few sites including from Epsom in their new 40,000 sq ft home.
Recently The Office (Virgin’s former home) was bought by the Arora Group and a 140,000 sq ft. refurbishment is planned.
Crompton Way – Home to CGG, a geophysical company involved in the exploration of natural oil and gas deposits whether under at sea or on land. CGG recently sold part of their site (2 acres) at a strong market land price which illustrates confidence in Manor Royal to reflect the industrial occupier demand. The purchasers, Wrenbridge are submitting planning this month for a new 2 unit industrial scheme of 53k sq ft.
Thales UK – biggest occupier and employer – employing about 2,000 people. They are involved in the defence and simulation business and this is their largest UK site. Officially opened in 2009. Approx. 350k sq ft.
County Oak – This is Crawley’s main out of town shopping area. Very popular and soon to be very full. Next opened their new and much bigger store earlier this year. In July a new Boots is opening quickly followed by TK Maxx.
Across the way is the new Acorn Retail Park that opened last year consisting of Smyths Toys, Aldi and M&S Food.
Round the back is a Basepoint Business Centre, Dualit, Tesla Motors and Ocado – among others, there’s even a kidney dialysis centre down there – and in August a new Wickes Superstore opens.
Stunning new Elekta headquarters office and R&D facility ready Jan 2018. 110,000 sq ft. Elekta are one of the areas key employers and a global leader in the development and manufacture of oncology systems – cancer treatment. Elekta have been here since about 1972 and this represents the next exciting phase of their development and growth.
Opposite is one of the iconic buildings in Crawley. Astral Towers. 120k sq ft Opened in 1981 and the former home to British Caledonian. Still attractive and home to a number of interesting companies and soon a new gym which opens in the next few weeks.
Old Paste Reale: This new development coming forward will be the site for a new Lexus and Hyundai car dealership acquired by the Motorline Group.
A new South East Coast Ambulance Service “Make Ready” Centre opened last year.
The next site along is a four acre site being promoted as Space Gatwick. It will consist of 116,000 sq ft, 3 unit industrial development by London Metric. One of the last development opportunity sites available.
Churchill Court – Clearbell purchased in 2014 and are to refurbish the 3 buildings. 106,000 sq ft of Grade “A” offices
Crawter’s Brook People’s Park a 5 acre site that the Manor Royal BID reclaimed and acquired funding to turn into an award winning park that also serves to connect Manor Royal road with Fleming Way
The Nexus development. A 10 acre site formerly occupied by Thales. Vail Williams secured planning for the 3 plots. The office building (4 Gatwick Road) provides 60,000 sq ft with 50% pre-let to SECAmb.
Parcel One (towards the Crawters Brook front) is currently under offer to a major occupier at around 170,000 sq ft with planning secured for flight simulation training and manufacture for L3 – consolidation of sites outside Crawley.
Northwood Park. Vail Williams again acquired planning consent in April to redevelop the site to provide 70,000 sq ft of Grade “A” offices and they are shortly commencing a pre-let campaign.
Also along Gatwick Road is P&H Motorcycles started in 1980 from a garden shed, in 1996 they moved here and have gone on to become the biggest biker destination in the South of England.
Right behind P&H Motorcycles is the Real Pie Company – set up by a family of artisan butchers in 2004 – today they are a multi-award winning producer of freshly made pies.
There is also a new industrial re-development known Gatwick 55, Rutherford Way. New Crawley occupier Barker & Stonehouse – quality furniture lease on 55k sq ft.
Diamond Point @ 120k sq ft is the largest single site available in Sussex.
Another Virgin Atlantic facility – The Base. Quarter of a million sq ft Formerly the Upjohn Pharmaceutical manufacturing site Virgin Atlantic transformed the building into their global training HQ for crew.
Inside the building is a hull of a 747 where you can slide down the evacuation slide and – for James Bond fans – some of the internals from the first Daniel Craig movie “Casino Royale” were shot here.
New 110,000 sq ft Virgin Atlantic HQ (called VHQ) and Boeing another simulation and pilot training facility. Tokyo Electron a Japanese firm that manufacturers semiconductor production equipment.
Manor Royal now comprises 500 companies providing employment for 30,000 people.
