Construction of new Corby Magna Park mega-warehouse is finished as owners bid to lure in big business

A speculative warehouse of more than half-a-million square feet has just been finished in Corby, and now its owners are hoping to attract yet another big business to the town.

The 587,000 square foot MPC3 at Magna Park has been developed by multi-national logistics builder GLP. It’s being shown to more than 90 agents in an open day today (Thursday, November 16), drawn to Corby by the town’s location at the heart of the UK’s below-stairs logistics operations.

The unit next door has already been let to pre-fab housing firm Top Hat who plan to roll their first house off the production line in 2024. The owners hope the second warehouse will be let to a similarly ambitious company.

Eventually there will be seven warehouses on the 200-acre quarry and greenfield site. The largest, at just over a million square feet, will be the biggest ever built in Corby and one of the biggest in the UK. That warehouse will eventually sit alongside the A43 opposite the Holiday Inn.

GLP bought the site from former owner Mulberry after they secured planning permission in 2020, despite many local objections to the scheme. There have also been several campaigns across North Northamptonshire against the proliferation of warehouses on green sites.

In order to give something back to the community, the 120 acres of Cowthick Plantation woodland next door to the site will include 6km of walking and nature trails which will be open to the public. Old railway cuttings from iron works and lagoons will be used to manage water levels.

Corby, which lies at the heart of the UK’s logistics operations, is already home to dozens of large warehouses. But as moving goods around the country becomes slicker following the internet shopping boom, even more big sheds are needed to help companies improve their operations.

This latest one has been developed speculatively, which means that the owners need a tenant who can hit the ground running.

The Northants Telegraph took a tour of the site yesterday (Wednesday). Alongside the cavernous warehouse are three floors of high-spec office and amenity space as well as a fourth-floor boardroom with jaw-dropping views across industrial Corby.

Development director James Atkinson said: “We think the nearest available unit on this sort of scale is 100 miles away in Ellesmere Port so we expect a lot of interest.

"The average size of warehouses is getting bigger generally. When we first started 35 years ago, the average size was 200,000 square feet. Twenty years ago it was about 450,000 square feet and now we’re looking at 600 square feet.

"The industry has changed as the way people shop has changed.”

Senior development director Adrienne Howells said: “We expect it will be taken by a firm in logistics, retail or e-commerce. Practical completion was only last Friday so we’re really excited about showcasing it to logistics agents.”

The roof is made with transparent panels so no artificial lighting is needed in the daytime and a rainwater harvesting system recycles water from the roof for use in toilets.

Offices and stairwells are fitted-out to a high specification.

You can view more about the site here.

Magna Park factfile

When complete, the 200-acre warehouse park to the north of the A43 will be the biggest in Corby.

It will have six or seven units of between 279,000 square feet and 1.003million square feet.

The total floorspace will be 3,094million square feet.

The biggest unit will be Corby’s largest warehouse, even bigger than the BSH warehouse on the Midlands Logistics Park across the A43, which is 945,000 square feet.

MPC3 is the second of those units to be built and is 18m high.

It has 471 dedicated car parking spaces and 64 dock doors.

MPC3 is a cross-docked warehouse which means it has lorry dock doors at both sides – one side for goods coming in another for items leaving the warehouse.