Bonsors-Drapers Court, Kingston-upon-Thames

Posted by Bonsors on 22nd July 2019 -

Client
Aberdeen Asset Management, a global investment management group. 

Requirements
With its headquarters in Scotland, Aberdeen Asset Management needed the help of a local agent to help secure tenants for a building it owned in Kingston. Bonsors was instructed to let the vacant office space in the building and restructured a number of the existing leases. 

Practicalities

A mix of vacant offices in the 32,500 sqft office building that was constructed in the 1980s and providing offices on ground and five upper floors, located in Kingston Hall Road in the town centre. 

Solution

Whilst we were renegotiating leases and finding tenants for the building, we became aware that an adjourning occupier Kingston College could be in the market for additional accommodation. We made an approach to Kingston College and provided a full assessment of the building for their consideration. A series of negotiations undertaken by Bonsors culminated in an agreement for Aberdeen Asset Management to sell the entire building to Kingston College as part vacant and part investment. 

Results

With Kingston College housed next door, a combination of our local knowledge and providing client Aberdeen Asset Management with an alternative to letting the Drapers Court building, we were able to negotiate a solution which not only benefitted our client but enabled the College to expand its facilities whilst remaining in close proximity to its main campus. The building also enabled Kingston College to derive an additional revenue stream in the form of rental income from other occupiers of the building thereby benefitting a local organisation. Drapers Court is now home to Kingston College’s professional and management courses along with its teacher education courses and its tenants include the town’s driving theory test centre. 

This is an example of how Bonsors’ expertise, local knowledge and contacts led to a solution which whilst very different from the original letting brief provided a more suitable outcome for the client, Kingston College and the town. 

Commented director Tim Gauld: “We are committed to providing a service which exceeds the brief given by our clients. We will look at every aspect of the brief and where beneficial suggest a different solution to the one proposed by the client. In this instance, a sale rather than acting as a lettings agent for Aberdeen Asset Management not only provided our client with a positive outcome which they had not considered but enabled a major local organisation, Kingston College, to extend its own premises and provided then with a revenue stream which it otherwise did not have in the form of lettable office space it did not need to utilise for its own purposes.”