Legal & General Investment Management has signed tools giant Stanley Black & Decker for a new headquarters building in Maidenhead, in a market-moving transaction for the Thames Valley, CoStar News can reveal.
The group, a Fortune 500 American manufacturer of industrial tools and household hardware, has taken 30,066 square feet on the top floor at the Tempo Maidenhead building which completes in Spring 2024.
Market sources have suggested Legal & General has pushed rents on for Thames Valley offices at the building, with quoting rents for the top floors in excess of £50 per square foot, which would be a record for the region. At the end of last year, CoStar News revealed Japanese group Otsuka Pharmaceuticals had taken the third and fourth floor totalling 8,000 square feet at Blackrock and Canmoor's Windsor One and Two development at a rent close to £50 per square feet, then understood to be the highest rent in the Thames Valley.
Advised by Colliers, Stanley Black & Decker was based at Bath Road and has considered options in Slough and Maidenhead with Kennedy Wilson's Botanica in Ditton Park thought to have also been shortlisted.
Alan Carswell, property director at Stanley Black & Decker, said in a statement: “The combination of a fantastic space, great location and the comprehensive amenity offering makes Tempo a perfect fit for our company. The values the building holds of sustainability, community and quality align seamlessly with our business goals, making our future move to Tempo Maidenhead exciting – both for our staff and the business.”
Toby Lumsden, Tempo Maidenhead representative and director at Bray Fox Smith, said the building matches Stanley Black & Decker's "market leading" brand. "It’s been a pleasure to be involved in the best deal recently seen in the Thames Valley.”
Tempo sits within L&G’s Managed Fund which invests in freehold and leasehold property across the UK.
Tempo has also signed Oxford-based Missing Bean, a specialist in ethically sourced artisan coffee. The café, which will be open to residents of Maidenhead and located on street level, will become a wine bar in the evening.
Knight Frank and Bray Fox Smith acted as the office leasing agents for the development.
LGIM Real Assets gained consent in 2021 from the Royal Borough of Windsor & Maidenhead for the refurbishment and development of the 112,000-square-foot Star House office building in Maidenhead town centre as Tempo.
The plans for the four-storey building, which sits on an 1.4-acre site next to the train station at the gateway to the town centre, were to improve the "quality and usability of the site and create a more attractive and sustainable office building" with L&G targeting an EPC A and BREEAM Outstanding rating.
Legal & General bought the building in 2015 when it bought the freehold interest in 310,304 square feet of office and retail in Maidenhead from British Land for £90,200,000, reflecting a net initial yield of 5.9%.
Mark Stansfield, head of UK analytics at CoStar, said the letting was a further sign of the
"extreme bifurcation in office markets that we have seen over the past couple of years".
"A rent of circa £50 per square foot rent is a big jump on the £36.50 per square foot that Biogen paid for a similar amount of newly completed space in Maidenhead in August 2022 and emphasises the strength of demand for premium quality, sustainable space in a town which has one of the highest office vacancy rates in the country at 18.9%.”
The story has been updated to confirm the building is BREEAM Outstanding.