One of Wrexham’s largest landowners, founder and managing director of FI Real Estate Management, Tim Knowles, says his passion for Wrexham goes way back - and reaches far beyond football.

“On behalf of everyone at FI Real Estate Management, I send my heartfelt congratulations to Wrexham AFC. The club’s owners, players, management and most importantly, all the dedicated volunteers and supporters whose loyalty has endured, all thoroughly deserve the team’s promotion.

The town is enjoying a new lease of life thanks to this recent footballing success - but we’ve always known Wrexham to be something special. We bought our first plot of land here in 2005, back when it was typically overlooked by my property peers, and we’ve invested more than £136 million in the city to-date.

The Leader:

We’re proud to boast 2.8m sq ft of property assets in and around Wrexham and have just purchased a further 56 acres of land on Wrexham Industrial Estate, where FI Real Estate Management is the largest landowner. Last year we completed construction of three of our seven new build sites at the estate, two of which are already fully let. Our latest strategic employment site at Kingmoor Park covers 62 acres and will accommodate 400k sq ft of storage and distribution space.

We’ve always been confident in Wrexham’s industrial future - you only have to look back at its industrial lineage. It was at the forefront of the industrial revolution in the 18th century and it was in the Clywedog Valley that British ironmaking began. 

While the economy has moved away from heavy industry, visitors to Wrexham Industrial Estate will find sectors including high tech manufacturing, biotechnology, food, automotive and engineering. F Lloyd (Penley), which we acquired in 2021, is the largest and most successful warehousing company in North Wales.

 

Ask any of these businesses what sets Wrexham apart and they will speak generously about the city’s strategic connectivity, its critical location on the England-Wales border, plus easy transport links to North and South England, Scotland and South Wales.

Businesses setting up home in the city will also find a growing population of more than 65,000 and access to a skilled workforce. Glyndwr University, with whom we’ve partnered to provide student placements as part of our social value strategy, boasts more than 8,000 full time students and over 350 from outside the UK.

It rightly follows that Wrexham is a key focus of our UK investment strategy. We’ve just committed a further £50m in response to extremely high demand for our high quality, fit-for-purpose industrial units. Our UK-wide industrial estate comprises 91 sites to-date, which are part of a 10m sq ft portfolio. Our new build pipeline totals 5m sq ft and this year alone we expect to break ground on 19 new sites.

The Leader:

We’ll press forward with our strategy for Wrexham, regardless of what our opposition are doing. And just like Wrexham AFC’s foray into the English Football League next season, we know it’s all to play for here over the next few years.”

fi-rem.com