This surge in new car sales along with increased product lines is fuelling the desire for larger and grander showrooms, leaving motor property experts the unenviable task of finding increased acreage on prime sites in traditionally challenging markets such as Bath, Oxford, Bournemouth, Poole, York, Stockport and Solihull.

 

Manufacturer demands limit choice of sites even further

Pressure from manufacturers for retailers to develop bigger and more sophisticated showrooms against increasing competition for traditional motor dealer and industrial sites from businesses such as self-storage, budget hotels and gyms, means agents have a challenge on their hands.

Acquiring additional adjacent land is not always possible, and manufacturer standards for showrooms are becoming so exacting that it is difficult to redevelop existing vacant showrooms to their specifications. Decked car parking

is being introduced to boost space, but retailers increasingly have little option but to source entirely new sites to gain the acreage needed.

Poynton said: “Across the UK, requirements are getting larger in terms of new site developments. The number of acres has probably doubled like-for-like over the past decade. In the past, for BMW or Mercedes, two acres may have been sufficient. Now they want four acres or more.”

Tom Rigg, principal surveyor in automotive and roadside at GVA, said he has seen the number of new properties sought by clients more than double in the past two years, from 68 in 2012 to 153 in the first nine months of 2014: “At the moment, the consideration for a lot of dealers is the need to relocate and up-size their dealerships to meet manufacturer standards. Our own requirements from clients and those of other agents in the sector have been fairly major.”

In response, property experts are looking for different ways of satisfying manufacturer and retailer requirements – where aspirations often exceed budgets – including utilising non-traditional sites, mixed use and split-site options.

Robin Baker, a director at CBRE in the petroleum and automotive team, said: “There is not a lot of vacant showroom property of high enough quality for a main dealer. We have an ongoing requirement nationally for a manufacturer where we are looking at industrial properties and going through the planning process to get change of use to allow car sales. The manufacturer will have to spend a large amount of money to transform that space. That is illustrative of the lengths we are having to go to.”