The combination of location, minutes from Glasgow city centre with easy access to the motorway and three train stations, Grade A new office space with gigabit bandwidth – all at around a third of the cost of the city centre – makes Clyde Gateway a compelling option for businesses.
Established in 2008 following the announcement that Glasgow was to host the 2014 Commonwealth Games, Clyde Gateway has seen more than £1.5bn invested from both the public and private sector in the regeneration of 840 hectares across the east end of Glasgow and part of South Lanarkshire.
Working in partnership with Glasgow City and South Lanarkshire councils, Scottish Enterprise and the Scottish Government, Clyde Gateway covers an expansive area with opportunities existing for all types of businesses, from international firms looking for the ideal location to trade, to SMEs which require a modern but cost-effective location.
A number of technology, media, energy and digital firms, have already chosen to call it home.
Fionna Kell, Inward Investment Manager at Clyde Gateway says: “The hard work is really paying off. “We’re seeing a real appetite from businesses wanting to move to Clyde Gateway, attracted by the quality of business space, a prime location with excellent transport links and cost savings compared with city centres across the UK. I think we have reached a real tipping point in our fortunes.”
There is accommodation to match the needs of any size of business, ranging from smaller multi-let office spaces such as the Red Tree Business Suites, to larger industrial spaces at Clyde Gateway East, adjacent to Junction 2a of the M74, where work has finished on a new 27,500 sq ft speculative unit here, which has already had a healthy level of interest. It is the only manufacturing location in Glasgow with a smart electrical grid, making it greener, more efficient, secure and reliable.
For other businesses that want to bring in bigger teams, larger space options are available at Rutherglen Links Business Park and The Albus in Bridgeton.
Clyde Gateway’s newest flagship development is Magenta. Together with Clyde Gateway’s development partner, Highbridge Properties, Magenta will bring 1.2m square feet of office space over 27 acres to become one of the UK’s largest office parks, and which is expected to bring around 12,000 jobs to the area.
“The success story of Clyde Gateway speaks for itself,” said Kell. “Large employers like Police Scotland have reaped huge benefits from locating more than 1,200 administrative, finance, and IT staff here. Other significant dynamic and creative businesses, including SPIE UK, Glacier Energy, MadeBrave, Peebles Media, BT, School Cloud Systems, SHARC Energy and Cloud Cover IT now call Clyde Gateway home.”
Confidence in the area’s resurgence is further underlined by the announcement from Harris Finance, whose commercial property division had recently completed the development of two speculative industrial units at Rutherglen Links Business Park. They have now purchased a further four plots at the development, where they will invest a further £4.2m in building 53,000 sq. ft. of speculative industrial units.
Clyde Gateway’s reputation as a business location is growing all the time, not just because of the excellent transport links but also due to the business support and superfast broadband they provide. Infrastructure and connectivity are major drivers for the industrial property market, so there’s no doubt that the completion of recent improvements to the Raith interchange and the motorway network to the east of Glasgow has enhanced the area’s attraction and competitiveness even further.
The strong demand for the high quality industrial property and Grade A office space that Clyde Gateway offers, combined with a continued lack of supply from the city centre, will ensure that the next chapter in Clyde Gateway’s success story looks bright.
