We meet the owner of Beatties and find out about plans for the building and when work will start. We take a look around what is there now.
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00:00Mark Andrews for the Express and Star. We are in the former Beatty's department store which was one of
00:10Wolverhampton's best loved landmark buildings. I am here with Hiten Lagwani, the director of Eden
00:18Beatty's Limited which now owns the building and is the developing it. We are in the middle of the
00:25old shop, it's at the centre of the shop floor, one of the shop floors in the middle of the building.
00:31Perhaps you'll just tell me a little bit about what you're planning to do with this building.
00:34So we have put in, last year September, we put in an application to get the planning
00:41regularised with three or six apartments. That was granted in September. Now we have
00:48the consulting team pretty much putting up the drawings back for us to get it ready for
00:52construction. Our aspirations are to get 306 apartments and revive the commercial
00:59spaces which I think is about 22 units with the retention of the car park building to pretty much
01:05assist on the residents having some car park space in Wolverhampton. And we intend to pretty much,
01:12once everything works to plan, we intend to start some initial works on 1st of June this year.
01:19So the area that we're standing in, that was the main escalator for the Beatty's building
01:24and that's what will now be converted into a courtyard.
01:32A lot of people are asking about why the roof's been taken off, so perhaps you could explain
01:37why that has been done. We're creating two separate courtyards because the previous
01:41building was pretty much a commercial space so it wasn't too sensitive to privacy between one
01:47apartment to the other and to create the amenity spaces for the residents to use.
01:53That's pretty much a national planning policy that there's certain parameters that we have to
01:58meet for the amenity space. So we're creating two courtyards, one on this side of it, I think that's
02:03Block K, I'll pretty much share the drawings, and it's further on the front side of the Beatty's
02:07building where pretty much it was more of a full end-to-end floor so we've pretty much
02:12got rid of the centre deck to create a green space for the residents to enjoy.
02:19What made you decide on this building? You're from the London area, what made you decide to
02:25actually invest here in this building? So predominantly Eden Retirement Group has a vast
02:31portfolio of retirement living properties that we are developing at the moment. We have just
02:35one completion in Newbury, we have another completion in Agham Thorpe, then we've pretty
02:41much done groundbreaking on a site in Haywards Heath in Downlands next to Mid Sussex area
02:47Gatwick. We wanted to pretty much have a diversified portfolio across because retirement
02:53living portfolio pretty much it's more of a slow velocity sales and rental model and with
03:00Wolverhampton coming along it pretty much gives us the opportunity to build on a build-to-rent
03:05portfolio. So at the moment we are pretty much working on this model as a build-to-rent model
03:09that we plan to retain as many units as possible on the residential sites and with the commercial
03:14we're looking at a long-term lease. So you'll be looking at owning the building and renting it out
03:18will you? That's right yes. So all the existing windows will not comply with the new building
03:23regulations in terms of the sound, the acoustic value and the U values on it. So on the new section
03:3073 application we did have the provisions to replace all the windows and we are in the process
03:35to speak to manufacturers to give us solutions for a like-for-like replacement that will comply
03:40with both the building standards and pretty much safe keep the look of the listed
03:46building façade. So all the façade on this side on Victoria Street has been listed
03:51including Darlington Street. So we have to pretty much go for a like-for-like solution.
03:56And who do you see as a target market who will be renting the apartments in this building?
04:02We have looked at the demographic of it. We think that the first time buyers were pretty
04:06much struggling to get into the property portfolio or they're just starting new families.
04:12So we have more one-bedroom units with studios. The other thing that we're looking on
04:19is student accommodation. What we have seen is that certain families are moving in
04:24as part of the students coming in from international. So that's one possibility
04:29that we're trying to look at. And secondly working with Cornell's and Savills on the
04:35the marketing side there seems to be quite a lot of corporates with active manufacturing
04:40bases still in Wolverhampton so we're hoping that that will come in. We had a meeting with
04:45Cornell's last week and they've indicated there's a strong demand for rental units on that part so
04:51we're fairly confident that we can get the residents to move in. They said it'll be what
04:56June this year that people are expecting to see the building work started? Yes that's right.
05:02How long is it going to take? When will the first flats be coming onto the market?
05:07We have done a phasing plan so I think on the first phase, I don't have the figures in front
05:11of me, but on the first phase we're looking at 192 units and the second phase which is this
05:16unit K and J, they'll be done. So the total construction phase for the first 192 apartments
05:23we're looking at 24 months from construction. Yeah so that'd be like sort of summer what 2027?
05:2727 that's the first occupations we're looking at. Yeah. We're here now we're on the sort of
05:33shop floor I think this was where the ladies clothing would have been I think on the second
05:38floor and I'm sure many people have memories of this but this will soon be apartments people
05:43will be living in. That's right. And you're also planning to this is going to just tell us
05:48you're going to remove this canopy earlier here? Yes. So the design team at Coastal Condroit
05:54managed to get some archive drawings to show that that was not part of the original building
05:58yeah and their aspiration was to pretty much try and bring it back to the original building so
06:04we'll be removing that element out and reinstating the facade to look exactly the way it looked
06:09probably when the building was first constructed. And on the ground floor you're going to have like
06:13an arcade are you? That's right yes that's with the restaurants and all the overflow
06:18activity on the high street. So this will be removed then I mean it'll go inside through
06:22the building into towards the courtyard is that what happened there'll be an arcade leading to
06:26the courtyard? That's right so basically what we've split up the building is on the six cores
06:30so they'll be able to have access directly from the high street into the courtyard into the
06:34apartments. Yeah. Because obviously I'm sure you're aware one or two people have been a little bit
06:40nervous about what's happening with this building and things like that what would you say to people
06:44that were so concerned about that? Well since the previous owners got planning in 2020 a lot
06:50has changed in terms of the inflation and the construction cost being sky high. We are working
06:56with our construction team because we predominantly do all the construction with our sister company
07:02which is four quarter developments so we are trying to do value engineering to make sure that
07:07the site comes into a completion stage rather than it being abandoned halfway.
07:15We have based our calculations on trying to value engineer the construction
07:20and if there is any difficulty that we face once the design comes in WMCA has been very supportive
07:26to engage us on any funding requirements. That's the West Midlands combined of other two? That's
07:32right yes. So we had a couple of meetings with the WMCA. Yeah. We have already agreed
07:40certain documents and parameters that needs to be checked before we put a full application in
07:46and WMCA we hope to send the full presentation and all the cost plan
07:52and the models the financial models to WMCA by end of this week.
07:56Obviously this building has had a lot of people very emotionally attached to it people so they
08:02remember you know you walk through the doors and there's the perfume counters and things like that
08:06and the toy department and things like that. I mean have people been talking much to you about
08:11that you know people's memories of the building? So we have been monitoring a lot because since
08:16the building came back to market through the auction there's been a lot of emotions on Facebook
08:23there's a couple of groups that have formed onto that you know where people are discussing my mom
08:28used to work there I used to go there shopping some of them were pretty much this was the main
08:34retail center for them. So we do get that when you're walking on the streets we do get some love
08:39saying that we're happy for you guys to bring the building forward on the same token some of them
08:44are really angry that it's taking that long to come for the building to come through. But you
08:48can see today it's a vast project here and what we don't want to do is start on
08:53wrong information or if the construction costs are not tested. Because we want our developer
08:59that the finance company to be very supportive of us and for that we just have to make sure
09:04that we're taking all the boxes. Okay Hikin Nagwani, thank you very much.