Arlington expands tenant services again

Business park developer Arlington Securities has announced a new joint venture with workspace specialist Claremont, broadening the range of services available to its tenants.

Arlington has been following a strategy of extending its support services offer for some time. A similar arrangement is in place with another workspace specialist, Morgan Lovell, and last year Symonds was brought on board to make FM skills available to tenants.

Arlington operates a business services division focusing on four key areas:

• estates - management and maintenance for the 13 parks
• accommodation - FM for any of the 340 occupiers who want to buy it this way
• workplace support - planning, design and fitting out services
• procurement - centralised purchasing of telecoms and utilities

Arlington's Howard Bibby reports that take-up of these services by tenants is increasing steadily. In two cases, he has even been asked to service other tenant company properties located outside the business park. He has agreed; "But," he says, "we have no desire to become a general outsource provider."

Claremont director Graham Smith, speaking about the latest tie-up, said: "This venture is important for both parties. Arlington needs to diversify in preparation for flotation at some point, while we can provide the resources to enable the company to change from being solely a developer to a complete property services provider."

Elliott Chase