CyrusOne To Build £1.2B Data Centre In Bucks: The Week's London Deal Sheet
The Deal Sheet is a weekly compilation of Greater London and beyond's biggest leases, sales, financing deals, construction updates and personnel moves. Have news you’d like to submit? Email mark.faithfull@bisnow.com.
Global data centre developer and operator CyrusOne has announced plans for a new £1.2B data centre facility outside London, at Iver Heath, Buckinghamshire.
As its sixth location in the UK, Lon6 is set to deliver 90 megawatts of capacity and “represents the next step in CyrusOne’s ongoing development programme for growth and expansion across Europe,” the company said.
The Lon6 data centre will deliver information technology capacity to circa 323K SF of technical space across four double-storey and two single-storey data halls. The development is expected to break ground in the third quarter of 2026, with initial power due to arrive mid-2027 and the first capacity to be delivered in early 2028.
“As demand for digital services continues to accelerate, larger facilities are necessary to provide the economies of scale that customers need, while also ensuring maximum functionality and mitigated risk of downtime,” CyrusOne Executive Vice President and Managing Director for Europe Matt Pullen said in a statement. “The UK market enables us to respond to these requirements.”
DEALS
Barings, on behalf of a core European real estate strategy, has acquired a portfolio of four multilet urban logistics properties across the south-east of England for £145M from Blackstone.
Called the Access portfolio, the assets are Tyson Park in Basingstoke, Sterling Centre in Bracknell, Centrapark in Welwyn Garden City, and Stratus Business Park in Milton Keynes. The portfolio includes 28 units spanning 747K SF, with occupancy in excess of 90%.
DTRE advised Barings. JLL acted on behalf of Blackstone.
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Clarion Partners Europe, on behalf of its managed funds, has acquired Frontier Park Blackburn, a 954K SF logistics park in Blackburn, for £115M from developer Monte Blackburn.
Completed in phases between 2019 and 2022, Frontier Park Blackburn totals 18 units ranging from 6,100 SF to 161K SF, each with an A or B energy performance certificate.
Since March 2023, Clarion Partners has invested more than £400M in the UK across 10 logistics assets in locations including Peterborough, Widnes, Coventry, Redditch, Kettering and Haydock.
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Real estate investment manager Aprirose has completed the £65M acquisition of a mixed-use portfolio in St John’s Wood, London, comprising 32 retail and 75 residential units.
Aprirose said it had already begun implementing a value creation strategy focused on investing in the estate to improve the tenant mix and create a destination high street, as well as improving and refurbishing the upper residential floors.
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Valor Real Estate Partners has acquired Westwood Trading Estate, a multilet industrial property in Park Royal, west London, from a private individual for £55M.
Developed in the 1980s, the estate comprises two opposing terraces totalling 125K SF across 13 units. It is 70% occupied by a range of predominantly third-party logistics and distribution businesses. Valor said it intends to undertake an ESG-led refurbishment programme of the four vacant units.
LEASING
U.S.-headquartered legal practice McDermott Will & Emery is to relocate from AXA’s 22 Bishopsgate to the former Fenwick department store in Mayfair as it seeks new offices with room for expansion.
It will move in 2028 into the converted store, once construction has been completed, and will take all 115K SF at the Lazari Building, 7 Brook Street, developed by privately owned investment and development company Lazari.
Designed by Foster & Partners, the scheme will also include a two-storey, 38,500 SF retail space, external terraces for the offices and a rooftop garden.
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Asian tea brand TWG Tea has secured 413 Oxford Street for a 3,400 SF store across the ground floor and basement in a corner unit opposite Selfridges.
It marks TWG Tea’s second UK location, following its flagship in Leicester Square. Newmark acted for the retailer in the deal.
FUNDING
Sovereign Network Group has secured a £250M funding deal with NatWest to support plans to build more than 25,000 homes over the next decade.
The housing provider owns and manages more than 85,000 homes in communities across London and the south, west and east of England. It employs more than 2,000 people. The funding will also support SNG to roll out its Homes and Place Standard to all its homes.
SNG recently launched a £1.5B Euro medium-term note, enabling SNG to improve its access to debt capital markets and augment its existing £1.2B of public debt funding, the company said.
CORPORATE
Mark Capital Management has fully integrated its French investment and development affiliates Stepling and Assembly and said it will look to scale Assembly into a pan-European development platform.
Established in 2018 to be the in-house delivery partner for Mark, Assembly has managed close to €3B of projects to date, including Toko, the former Yahoo headquarters redeveloped into coliving and coworking space, acquired by La Française and DWS in separate transactions, and Grand Opera, a former five-star Marriott hotel redeveloped into a mixed office-retail complex, acquired by Pontegadea.
Assembly is also expanding its strategy to include the purpose-built student accommodation and logistics sectors. The development platform will look to grow its pipeline further, leveraging third-party capital.
PLANNING
Singaporean developer Hoi Hup Realty has received planning permission from the City of London for a new office development on High Holborn.
The new development occupies a prominent 1.4-acre island site adjacent to Chancery Lane underground station. Hoi Hup assembled the site over five years, acquiring 322 High Holborn and 44 Southampton in July 2018 and acquiring Holborn Gate in an off-market transaction in July 2022. The three properties are multilet, comprising approximately 250K SF.
The planning application proposed the demolition of the existing properties and construction of an office-led development of around 370K SF of office workspace and a ground-floor retail offer.
