A Plymouth development company has bought two plots of land to enable it to start work on a £50million project to build multiple apartment blocks close to the city’s waterfront.
Sutton Harbour Group Plc has completed the purchase of about 1.5 acres of land, for an undisclosed sum described as “at market value”, immediately to the east of Sutton Harbour.
The deal will enable the company to push ahead with its plan to construct six blocks of flats on industrial land next to where it also aims to build what would be one of Plymouth’s tallest skyscrapers.
The AIM-listed company envisages a “residential quarter”, with a combined construction value of more than £50million, created on land between Sutton Road and St John’s Bridge, connected by a walkway leading directly to the waterfront and the company’s previously approved £60million Sugar Quay tower of waterside apartments, shops and restaurants.
The new;y-acquired land is currently used by industrial and commercial businesses, with warehouse buildings and open storage yards. Plans, if approved, would see the plot turned into a residential accommodation in two complexes, each of three blocks of flats, around a large public square.
There will also be shops and car parking, and it is intended the scheme would feature affordable housing and social housing at St John’s Bridge, alongside open market apartments.
A pedestrian walkway linking St John’s Bridge to Sutton Harbour via Sugar Quay, to be called St John’s Link, would “provide much needed connectivity” for residents in Prince Rock, Cattedown and Coxside to Sutton Harbour and the city centre.
Meanwhile, plans for the 20-storey Sugar Quay skyscraper, granted full planning permission in December 2018, are the subject of a new application, revised to relocate a planned basement car park to facilities included in the development at St John’s Bridge.
SHG has financed the land acquisition with a new loan from a private funder secured with a first charge on the purchased site, a first charge against another freehold site owned by SHG, and with the company's banker maintaining a second charge on that other freehold site.
SHG, in a statement to investors said: “The company has submitted formal planning applications for two new residential-led developments, which will the kickstart the long-held aspiration of the local authority for the regeneration of the area immediately to the east of Sutton Harbour, bounded by Sutton Road on the west, Gdynia Way on the east, Exeter Street on the north and the Barbican Approach on the south.
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“These two new developments include over 200 housing units, retail and live-work space and parking in two complexes; one adjacent to St John's Bridge and the second on the east side of Sutton Road.
“The first development, adjacent to St John's Bridge, will include a new east-west public walkway which will allow pedestrian connectivity from the east side of Sutton Harbour at Sugar Quay through the new developments to St. John's Bridge, providing a direct linkage to/from the residential communities further east.”
Meanwhile, SHG is aiming to start work on a nine-storey apartment block, Harbour Arch Quay tower, in 2021 and even start marketing the flats by the spring.
Pre-construction preparations for the scheme, also at Sutton Harbour, have continued in recent months and selection of the construction management team and finalisation of the detailed drawings are in process.
The firm said it is expected that, subject to completion of finance arrangements, work on the 14-apartment, nine-floor building “will start during 2021, with marketing of the units to be launched in the springtime of the new year”.
