Dialog Semiconductor plc chooses Birch House for major Edinburgh expansion
Cosmopolitan Investments has secured a second significant letting at Birch House, the company’s office development at Bankhead in West Edinburgh.
The latest tenant is Dialog Semiconductor plc, which already occupies 14,000 sq ft of space at Multrees Walk, adjacent to St Andrew Square in the city centre.
Dialog has taken just under 1,200 sq ft of space on a ten year-lease at an initial rental of £12 a sq ft with a tenant break option after five years.
The letting is a result of expansion by Dialog, who will use the additional space secured at Birch House primarily as a test centre for components such as microchips which eventually form part of tablets and MP3 devices produced by some of the world’s leading consumer electronics companies.
Dialog’s biggest single client is Apple inc. The Stuttgart-based company achieved $774 million in revenues in 2012 and is recognised as one of the fastest-grown public semiconductor companies in Europe.
This deal comes in the wake of a recent letting to Hollander International Systems which has taken 3,480 sq ft of accommodation (the ground floor east suite) on a ten-year lease. This means that Birch House is now 50 per cent let just five months after Cosmopolitan Investments began a marketing campaign to fill space vacated by the previous occupant, Petroleum Geo-Services.
Iain Mercer, group managing director, Cosmopolitan Investments, said: “We began re-marketing Birch House confident that the suites available met an under-supplied part of the market in West Edinburgh, where there are very few sub-2,000 sq ft suites outwith the serviced office sector.
“Although Birch House is geared to provide business and R&D space, its roots lie in development and manufacturing (the building once formed part of the Ethicon surgical sutures factory) so it’s great to have a pioneering and innovative company such as Dialog continue that tradition in the consumer electronics industry.”
Mr Mercer also said that the proximity of Birch House to the tram stop at Bankhead Estate “cannot be underestimated” as it meant that Digital staff will, from next year, be able to transfer between both their Edinburgh offices in under 15 minutes. “Commercial connectivity of this nature will at least be one benefit of the long-awaited tram line.”
Cosmopolitan was represented in both deals by Eric Young and Co and Lambert Smith Hampton.
Submitted by Ken Houston
