The team behind high-profile regeneration projects including Battersea Power Station has been appointed as commercial partner for three huge East Midlands development sites.
Areli Developments, founded by Rob Tincknell, will draw up the commercial strategy for three major sites being promoted by the East Midlands Development Company.
It will work on the long-term strategy for hundreds of acres of land around East Midlands Airport, Ratcliffe-on-Soar Power Station and the Toton-Chetwynd corridor on the outskirts of Nottingham.
East Midlands DevCo is the public-private partnership set up to promote development around the three sites – each of which is the size of London’s Olympic Park.
It is hoped that they will collectively generate 84,000 jobs and add billions of pounds to the East Midlands economy in the decades ahead.
Some of the sites sit within the boundary of the proposed East Midlands Freeport, and are close to the planned HS2 terminal at East Midlands Parkway station.
Areli has worked on big projects including the Gunwharf Quays shopping centre in Portsmouth, the 52-acre Spencer Dock site in the Dublin Docklands and the new Nicholson urban quarter in Maidenhead.
Its East Midlands team will include architects Benoy, regeneration consultant Urban Delivery and placemaking experts MurrayTwohig.
Richard Carr, managing director of EM DevCo, said: “Our three sites represent one of the biggest and most ambitious development opportunities in the UK’s regions, and we expect them to have an impact at macro-economic level.
“Our ambitions run deep into the quality and nature of the development we’re looking to enable, and bringing on board a partner of Areli’s calibre is a mark of how high we’re aiming.”
Rob Tincknell, whose current development portfolio includes more than 8 million sq ft of mixed use regeneration projects, said: “Our team includes some of the leading real estate strategy specialists in the UK, all of whom are extremely excited to work with the DevCo to help create a robust and compelling vision for the future of three extraordinary projects.
“One of the key workstreams we’ll be commencing over the next 12 months will be to actively engage with local communities and stakeholders to hear their views and build them into the DevCo’s ambitious plans.”
The East Midlands sites will include the development of a new innovation campus, housing schemes, large-scale demonstrators aimed at taking net zero technologies to market-ready status, and infrastructure improvements.
EM DevCo is also working in partnership with the East Midlands Freeport, which seeks to build on the area’s status as a major trade gateway.
East Midlands Airport is already the UK's biggest pure air freight airport – as opposed to freight carried on passenger planes – and sits alongside the SEGRO road-rail logistics site.
