The new Big Yellow warehouse in London and Hove will be McLaren’s 16th and 17th projects for the self-storage company.
The new facility in King’s Cross, London will provide 106,000 sq ft maximum lettable area of self-storage space, including office space and wine storage. The scheme includes the construction of a double basement, ground floor and six upper floors as well as external site works, with completion of construction works is expected by November 2022. The store opening is planned for summer 2023.
The new self-storage centre in Hove, East Sussex should open to customers by spring 2022 with 58,000 sq ft of maximum lettable area, including 4,700 sq ft of flexible office space. The scheme includes the construction of a two-level basement self-storage unit with an area of green roof and associated external works. The Hove storage facility is beign converted from a former car dealership.
Both the Kings Cross and Hove buildings were designed for Big Yellow by architect Mountford Pigott.
McLaren Construction built its first Big Yellow storage facility in Finchley, north London in 2002 and has to date built more than a million square feet of Big Yellow storage space.
Big Yellow construction director Nigel Hartley said: “From the early days, all of the team at McLaren have performed admirably, completing each of the new stores in line with expectations. We often challenge their project teams with the most difficult of builds. McLaren have never let me down and deliver on promises I make to the board.”
Dan Brister, divisional director at McLaren Construction, said: “We’re excited to be delivering two strategically important new locations for Big Yellow Self Storage, a leader in self-storage, a sector which has experienced significant growth during the pandemic. We continue to grow our pipeline in the industrial and logistics construction sector and look forward to developing our relationship with Big Yellow further.”
The self-storage sector saw the highest level of occupancy recorded at 82% since records began in 2004, according to the Self-Storage Association UK Annual Industry Report (May 2021), while industry turnover increased by 16% annually to £890m as working from home drove people to make space for ‘home offices’ by decluttering. The use of self-storage by online retailers also saw the greatest leap as ecommerce expanded during the pandemic.
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