Newly opened Fox Valley in Sheffield secures £23m fund

The recently opened Fox Valley town centre development in north Sheffield has secured a three-year £23m funding package from Lloyds Bank.

Dransfield Properties’ Fox Valley opened its doors to its first phase of stores in June at an official opening ceremony hosted by Absolutely Fabulous star Joanna Lumley OBE.

The Commercial Real Estate team at Lloyds Bank first supported the mixed-use scheme with a £10m development loan which was provided to fund the project’s initial construction and an extension of this to £17.3m last October to deliver the second phase.

Creating 900 new jobs, the regeneration scheme includes 60,000 sq. ft. of office space, 144,000 sq. ft. of retail and leisure units and 118 new homes.

The development has delivered a brand new town centre for north Sheffield, and attracted a lineup of new stores to this part of the region, including the Cornish Fashion and homewares brand Seasalt, the boutique mother and baby store JoJo Maman Bebe and the first multi brand store from The Edinburgh Woollen Mills, including Ponden Home and Peacocks.

Full Gas Bikes has opened its first new concept store at the centre and a new Paperchase store is also due to open later in the autumn.

Ponti’s Italian Kitchen has chosen Fox Valley for its first restaurant outside London, which is set around a landscaped fountain area at the centre, - also home to a Central Bean Coffee Shop and the Yorkshire-based gourmet burger company NYC Bar and Grill.

Fox Valley also houses the region’s largest Aldi store after the German-owned retailer replaced Tesco as one of the scheme’s anchor tenants last year.

Phase two will see Next, M&Co and the independent boutique department store Sanderson’s added to the retail mix.

Dransfield Properties plans to use its new funding package to repay the existing development facilities and to provide working capital to support Fox Valley’s growth over the next few years.

Mark Dransfield, managing director at Dransfield Properties, said: “Fox Valley is our largest development to date and we are delighted to have the on-going support of our long-term banking partners at Lloyds Bank who have been with us from the very start.

“After a hugely successful opening ceremony we are now focused on realising the scheme’s significant potential as a new retail destination and commercial heart in this part of north Sheffield, and looking forward to our second phase of openings in September.”

Tom Cross, relationship director at Lloyds Bank Commercial Real Estate, added: “Fox Valley has created a new community, transforming a previously disused industrial site and creating hundreds of new jobs. It is a great example of the kind of transformational development projects we like to back and I’m pleased that we’re now supporting the next chapter in its story.”

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