Shoosmiths Manchester advises Allied London on milestone pre-let to popular travel website

The real estate team at the Manchester office of leading national law firm Shoosmiths has advised Allied London on one of the biggest office pre-lets in the city in almost 20 years.

Shoosmiths acted for Allied London on the pre-let of 222,000 sqft of space at Manchester Goods Yard, which forms part of Allied London's Enterprise City tech campus.

Booking.com will be one of Enterprise City's anchor tenants in the 12 year letting deal which will provide a new global headquarters for the group's ground transportation division.

The move, which will create Booking.com's second biggest location after its global headquarters in Amsterdam, represents a £100 million investment over the next ten years and will create 200 new jobs. Construction of the Manchester Goods Yard will begin this year and is due for completion in 2020.

Advising on the pre-let on behalf of Allied London was a team of Shoosmiths real estate experts led by Partner, Daniel Monaghan. Commenting on the deal, Daniel said, "We are proud to have played a role in this momentous deal, which will help to drive the success of our regional economy and add to Manchester's global reputation as a great place to invest. Every member of our team worked hard to support Allied London in making this deal a success and it is fantastic to see those efforts come to fruition."

Dannie Spencer, Head of Legal at Allied London added, "We were guided expertly through a complex negotiation by Daniel and his team. Shoosmiths' (i) knowledge of the St John's history (through their role on Allied's acquisition of the site), (ii) in-depth understanding of the Masterplan and (iii) ability to provide strong commercial advice, was invaluable to the Allied in-house teams (both lettings and legal) throughout the process.

"Manchester Goods Yard and the Booking.com pre-let are a pivotal part of Enterprise City and it was essential that we had a strong team of advisors pro-actively leading the process on our behalf. We're proud to be anchoring Enterprise City with Booking.com and this goes to shows the strength of Manchester on the global stage."

The Shoosmiths Manchester real estate team is one of the largest in the North West and the Manchester office currently holds the Legal 500 Regional Real Estate Firm of the Year title. Shoosmiths' national real estate team has been shortlisted in the 'Property Team of the Year' category at this year's Estates Gazette Awards.