A Plymouth office block has been sold for about £1million – but will be turned into flats.
Foliot House, in Budshead Road, in the leafy Crownhill area on the edge of the city, has been empty since tenant the Skills Funding Agency moved out.
The 12,500sq ft split-level block, which is up to three storeys high and has an internal lift, was put on the market in November 2018 with an asking price of £1,175,000 but there were no takers for it as offices.
But it has now been snapped up by an unnamed developer who wants to turn the building into apartments. It is on a business park but in an area of the city which is mostly residential and where houses can sell for as much as £1million.
There are other empty offices for rent on the Brooklands Office Campus, some even right next door to Foliot House.
Joanne High, head of property consultants Vickery Holman’s Plymouth office, said: “The property was sold to a local developer who plans to use permitted development rights to convert the building into flats.
“Developers are still very active in Plymouth and are looking for different angles to provide residential accommodation when the standard brownfield/greenfield sites aren’t available.
“It was purchased by a local developer to provide housing for local people. It stands out because it is the first building on an otherwise office business park to be sold for residential use, so it provides a gateway for either mixed use areas or all of the office space here gradually turning to residential.
“There is a lack of affordable flats for professionals working nearby, and so this conversion will fill a gap in the market.”
The Skills Funding Agency was wound up by the Government and combined with the Education Funding Agency to create the Education and Skills Funding Agency.
The idea was to create a single agency accountable for funding education and skills for children, young people and adults. It has an office in Bristol.
Plymouth’s Budshead Road is the only street with that name in the entire UK.
