THE proverb, “it’s an ill-wind that blows nobody any good” is the subject of fierce debate about its meaning.
The argument arises due to the double negative structure of the saying. Like any double negative, its meaning becomes clearer if you invert the saying back into a straight-forward, positively-phrased, assertion: namely “most winds bring some good to somebody”.
The saying is relevant to Rumford Investments’ Unity residential tower that stands alongside Rumford’s 20 Chapel Street office block.
It has been a long haul for Rumford, but the end is now in sight.
Completed in 2006, the 155,000sq ft office development has been slow to fill, partly because Rumford was ambitious to maximise rents. At about £22 sq ft, initial lets achieved record commercial office rents for Liverpool city centre.
If you look at the list of tenants (Ernst & Young, Panmure Gordon, Barclays and Liverpool Football Club) you would have to conclude it is blue-chip. But more recent deals will undoubtedly have been clinched by some pragmatism about the rents that can be achieved in the current difficult market conditions.
The space inside 20 Chapel Street is definitely smart, or Grade A to use property market jargon. Rumford should have no trouble filling the remaining space, perhaps even by their end of year target date. The absence of any real alternative Grade A space in Liverpool city centre, to compete with 20 Chapel Street, should make that task all the easier.
As for the associated residential development, sales of apartments in the 30-storey tower have certainly been a lot better than those at the nearby West Tower. All but 18 of 161 Unity apartments have been sold, whereas only 17 of 123 West Tower apartments have been sold. It would appear Unity benefited from the legal dispute that prevented West Tower sales proceeding. Liverpool City Council successfully claimed that part of the tower overhung its land. Unity’s sales success would seem to suggest that West Tower could have succeeded, too, if it weren’t for the legal dispute. Instead, though, Beetham’s 40-storey development was eventually forced into administration.
IS THERE no stopping John Syvret?
I recall conversations with the shipyard entrepreneur when he expressed considerable frustration with the tactics of rival South Coast- based shipyard A&P Group.
A&P had snatched Cammell Laird from under his nose back in 2001, when receivers preferred their bid to Mr Syvret’s. The amount of work that passed through the Birkenhead yard in the subsequent years was pretty thin, and Mr Syvret long held the view that A&P was sitting on it to prevent him from forming a rival business.
Now, ten years on, Mr Syvret has the last laugh as he and his co-investors take ownership of A&P Group. How he must chuckle to himself.
I would hazard a guess that it is not ships that Mr Syvret and his business partners at Peel have in mind for the three yards they have just acquired, although the yards do yield some profit from such activities.
Instead, the facilities are more likely to be wanted to service the off-shore wind farm industry, which will be big in the coming years. Mr Syvret’s Cammell Laird is targeting the wind farm sector in the Irish Sea, but his newly acquired facilities at Tyneside and Teesside can serve a market that’s four times the size.
