Pickard Properties plans head office expansion to support growing development and letting operations

Pickard Properties, the Leeds-based family-owned property developer, landlord, and lettings specialist, is expanding its head office in Headingly to support its growing business activities.

With a portfolio of more than 250 student and professional let properties across the city, together with a number of significant property developments underway and in the pipeline, the business is adding a further 1800 sq ft to its office.

Having created a new structure for the business in the past 12 months, with the creation of specialist teams, along with a significant digitalisation project, which enables remote working from sites and properties, the additional space on the second floor of the building on North Lane will bring much needed extra capacity.

The space will enable Pickard Properties to increase its headcount, growing its 20-strong team with plans to recruit an additional ten people in 2023-2024.

These roles will be across its customer relationship, maintenance, and accounts teams as well as its lettings hub, which works with both students and professional rental clients.

In addition to providing additional space to create dedicated areas for its teams, the expansion will also feature new meeting rooms and breakout areas.

Alongside its extensive student portfolio, Pickard Properties is a highly active developer, bringing forward schemes which, once completed, it retains to offer for rent.

This includes the prestigious Spinning Acres private rental development in Far Headingly, a former student accommodation site, which has historic links to the city’s textile industry.

Being developed in a series of phases, Spinning Acres features a collection of one, two-, three-, four- and five-bedroom homes, apartments, and townhouses across new build and renovated historic buildings.

Pickard Properties has also embarked on its next significant project, having submitted a planning application to regenerate the former Weetwood police station into a new 127-apartment, build-to-rent community in Northwest Leeds.

Utilising its experience in the student lettings market, Pickard Properties is also developing Carlton Hill, which at 604-beds is one of Leeds’ largest student accommodation schemes.  Once completed in the first half of 2023, Carlton Hill will be leased by Unipol Student Homes, with the site’s three buildings exclusively used by students attending the University of Leeds.

Miles Pickard, Director of Pickard Properties, said: “The planned expansion of our head office demonstrates how the business has evolved and grown in recent years.  We are a cornerstone of the student accommodation market, increasing our presence as a landlord and service provider, while also expanding our activities in the development of schemes in and around Leeds.

“This led to the need to restructure our business into dedicated teams to provide the best possible service to student and private tenants. We placed a huge focus on digitalisation to enable our staff to work effectively from our properties and sites. This was a huge project, which we completed during the pandemic and has given us the platform to focus on our physical infrastructure, which will not only provide a more comfortable and interesting working environment but also the capacity to create more jobs to meet demand.”