Paragon hails Scottish arm’s first year

Building and project consultancy Paragon is celebrating its first year in Edinburgh after completing close to £300 million in insurance valuations since the launch of its Scottish branch.

From left: Paragon's Paul Lafferty, Elaine McKail, David Philip and Jamie March. Picture: Chris Watt

The firm’s George Street office, which opened in January 2018, has completed 2.2 million square feet of building surveys and almost £300m worth of insurance valuations in its first 12 months.

Paragon, which has further bases in London, Surrey, Manchester and Bristol, said its Scottish team’s portfolio included the project management of Bywater Properties’ McLellan Works scheme on Glasgow’s Sauchiehall Street and the refurbishment of vacant office accommodation at LGIM’s Union Plaza in Aberdeen.

It has also completed “numerous” building survey reports, including for Brucefield Industry Park in Livingston and Broadway Park, Edinburgh.

Other notable clients include Aberdeen Standard Investments, Hudson Advisors, Legal and General Investment Management, Oval Real Estate, Brighton Pier Group and Manse.

Director and head of the Edinburgh office David Philip said: “We’ve had an incredibly successful first year in Edinburgh and are seeing demand for our services growing every month. Our presence in the city has enabled us to offer a responsive service to our existing Scottish clients as well as attract new business.

“There’s an outstanding talent pool in the city which we have been able to tap into and build a robust team who know the property market inside out.

“Our ongoing growth strategy will continue in 2019, driven by our distinct approach of providing clients with highly effective integrated services that create commercial advantage.”

Earlier this month the firm expanded its Edinburgh team with new hires associate director Paul Lafferty, a chartered building surveyor specialising in commercial property, and office manager Elaine McKail.

During the last year, Paragon also opened an office in Bristol and expanded its offering to include in-house drone service, occupier services, a standalone dispute resolution support (DRS) service and rights of light and daylight planning.

The firm has an annual turnover of £22m and employs nearly 200 people.

Meanwhile, property investment trust LXi REIT said it had acquired a local government let office near Glasgow for £6.8m, as part of a string of transactions it has agreed across the UK.

The property has been fully let to South Lanarkshire Council on a new, unbroken 20-year lease.

The three-storey building,located in Cambuslang, totals just over 36,000 sq ft, comprising office space, a doctors’ surgery, job centre, and 47 parking spaces.

John White, partner of LXI REIT Advisors, said: “We are pleased to have completed these profitable disposals and accretive acquisitions. These new investments provide attractive income and growth potential.

“We are continuing to deploy the balance of our new Scottish Widows loan facility and are in solicitors’ hands on a range of further accretive pre-let forward funding investments.”