After lying empty and unused for the last four years, the former site of Barnet Market has been purchased by BYM Capital, the property investment company which owns The Spires, the adjoining shopping centre.
There is no indication yet as to how BYM Capital might decide to redevelop the 0.4-acre site at the junction of St Albans Road and Chipping Close.
Temporarily it became a car park but was then fenced off to the public after plans for a new Premier Inn were abandoned.
In August, estate agents Cushman and Wakefield confirmed that an offer “of around £3 million” had been accepted and that contracts were in the process of being exchanged.
The sale price is well down on the £4million which the previous owner paid for the site after it gained planning approval for the construction of a 100-bed hotel -- permission which expired in November 2021.
Locate Developments (Hotels) Ltd, which in 2018 obtained the hotly contested planning approval for a Premier Inn, sold the site to Aberdeen City Council, through the control of its finance company, Aberdeen Standard Investments.
In the 2021 sales prospectus for the site, agents Cushman and Wakefield included a feasibility study which suggested the site could be developed with either two blocks of flats of three and four storeys or a four-storey block of flats plus nine town houses.
BYM Capital, which says it has over £700 million in assets and land under management and development, bought the five-acre site of The Spires shopping centre for £28 million in May 2021.
At the time the suggested sale price was £25 million, far less than the £40 million paid by the Canadian pension fund AIMCO which purchased the complex in 2015.
When promoting the sale of The Spires, real estate advisers Savills said the shopping centre offered investors “a significant regeneration opportunity” to provide a range of alternative uses as well as retail, including residential development.
An aerial view suggesting how the centre might be redeveloped showed the existing courtyards and malls replaced by a large courtyard formed around five-storey blocks of flats with retail premises on the ground floor.
In January this year, a real estate funding specialist ASK partners said it had provided a £21.6 loan facility to BYM Capital to refinance a short-term bridging loan which was taken out to fund the acquisition of The Spires.
Since acquiring The Spires, BYM Capital has said repeatedly that it is committed to ensuring that the shopping centre remains at the heart of High Barnet.
In recent weeks there have been reports that a new operator has been found to take on the NCP car park, another indication of BYM Capital’s continued support for The Spires.
The closing down of the car park spaces on the abandoned market site has been the source of considerable frustration and anger among residents and shoppers.
It has been closed to vehicles for the last four years – a constant reminder of the loss of Barnet Market.
Currently the twice-weekly stalls market is held beside the bandstand at the Waitrose entrance to The Spires – a site which is often too restricted for the Saturday market which has been attracting many more stalls than in recent years.
Tyler Bone, joint proprietor of Barnet Market Ltd – which operates the market on behalf of The Spires – said confirmation of the purchase of the site did raise questions about whether more room could be found for the stallholders.
Much as he might like it to happen, he doubted whether there was any real chance of the market being relocated as he thought the former site was too valuable and would probably be redeveloped with flats or houses.
