Bowmer & Kirkland has scooped a deal to build two industrial units within a £100m development in the West Midlands.
The Derbyshire-headquartered contractor will deliver a 23,500 square metre building and a smaller 1,650 square metre structure on the Spark scheme in Walsall.
Both are set for completion later this year and represent the first units under construction on the 18 hectare site close to the M6 motorway.
The work is worth £22m for Bowmer & Kirkland, a company spokesperson told Construction News.
Origin, an industrial platform owned by Henry Boot’s development arm HBD and Feldberg Capital, is delivering Spark on a disused site in the Black Country.
West Midlands mayor Richard Parker said: “For more than two decades this site in Walsall has lay derelict and abandoned. But now, following a multimillion-pound investment, it will be a site open for development – bringing in businesses, investment and jobs.
“This former copper works, once a place of heavy industry, is being transformed into a site ready to house modern manufacturing and logistics companies in the region. It will create hundreds of valuable jobs, but most importantly, it will be a catalyst for economic growth in the region.”
HMB managing director Ed Hutchinson said an “extremely complex” remediation project had been needed to prepare the site for development.
“It’s positive to see construction beginning on the first two units, boosting the supply of Grade A industrial and logistics space, which remains tight across the West Midlands,” he added.
Bowmer & Kirkland was ranked 18th in last year’s CN100 table of top contractors with turnover of £1.24bn for the year to 31 August 2023.
Other industrial and logistics jobs completed by the firm since 2022 include a £47m temperature-controlled warehouse for food distributor AMFresh UK in Cambridgeshire, an £18.5m innovation centre for the glass industry in St Helens, and a £15m headquarters building for industrial automation specialist Fanuc UK in Coventry.
