A luxury office complex with a rooftop terrace, yoga and enterprise studio is to be created out of a popular former cafe in Newcastle city centre.
Cafe Royal, in Nelson Street, closed last year and has been acquired by MCM Investments (海角视频 & Ire) Ltd, a property investment and development vehicle owned by Ian Watson, the founder and chairman of successful luxury care home business Hadrian Healthcare.
Mr Watson sold a number of care homes two years in a deal worth more than 拢100m, and he has been using the proceeds to drive drive forward MCM Investments.
That starts with the 拢1m transformation of the Cafe Royal building into new offices for a post-Covid world.
Set across five floors, the Grade II listed building 鈥 tentatively called simply 8 Nelson Street 鈥 will have a roof terrace with places to work, a yoga studio and a gym, an executive boardroom with a private dining area and kitchen, relaxation spaces.
Mr Watson said MCM investments has taken inspiration from several cutting edge tech London offices, which has triggered the stunning designs to give potential tenants a glimpse at what to expect.
A team of contractors is now working inside the listed building, stripping out the interior and expects it to be completed early next year.
It could be let to one single tenant or a number of smaller companies, and Mr Watson is hopeful that it will be fully let before building work is completed, having received lots of interest from potential tenants.
He said: 鈥淚t鈥檚 obviously an iconic building in a wonderful, central location just a few hundreds metres from the Metro station and has a very attractive facade.
鈥淎nd we felt that in this day and age, with the changes in people鈥檚 requirements for offices we could do something really special here.
鈥淎s we return to work people don鈥檛 necessarily want the traditional lines of desks and open floor plates.
鈥淲e had a real think about what we considered people want from an office going forward, and the word 鈥榗ollaboration鈥 comes up time and again. It needs to be a social space and not just a workspace, with lots of opportunities for people to sit and work together, but also collaborate with colleagues.
鈥淭his is going to be a place where you really want to go into the office rather than work from home.鈥
The building is one of a number of property investments made across the North by MCM Investments Ltd - which takes its name from the intials of his sons, Mark, Craig and Max.
Mr Watson said: 鈥淎s a consequence of creating some liquidity we鈥檝e made a natural migration into property and investment.
鈥淧robably the best acquisition we鈥檝e made in the last two years is Douglas Cranston, who鈥檚 joined us as investment director and head of property from Knight Frank.
鈥淎nd through MCM Investments we鈥檝e acquired around 拢20m of property in the last 18 months. We鈥檝e been very discerning and the portfolio is very diverse, with retail, hospitality, industrial, offices and a number of tenants including Network Rail and Caffe Nero.
鈥淚n Gateshead we also have the Greenway Homes development of 25 homes which is 75% sold. And we鈥檝e got around 拢6m of purchases in the pipeline, across Newcastle and North Yorkshire.
鈥淢SM is keeping us very busy, but if you鈥檝e got the right people and the right resources it鈥檚 manageable and the people we have got are very talented.
鈥淲e still keep to the ethos we have with Hadrian Healthcare, in which we must always pursue quality, whether that鈥檚 designing a house, building a care home, providing the care in that care home, providing a meal or if it鈥檚 simply working with a tenant.
鈥淭he main thing for us is to build a diverse portfolio of investments and within the next 18 months I expect we鈥檒l have around 拢40m to 拢50m in assets, but we鈥檙e doing it very prudently.鈥
