The North East
Developer’s ten-year commitment set to continue
Developer Ashall Projects has helped transform the heart of Middlesbrough during the past decade
6 Centre Square
First, it was part of the team which financed and built the Holiday Inn Express, the town’s biggest hotel. Now, nearly ten years later Mark Ashall and his fellow investors are on the verge of welcoming guests to a new development of luxury serviced apartments – Station Suites.
In between Ashall Projects has built three Grade A office buildings in Centre Square which have attracted high profile employers, creating new jobs and ensuring that existing ones remained on Teesside.
“I look back with a great deal of satisfaction,” said Mark, the grandson of the founder of a family business, which began building houses in the 1930s. “That’s of course because of the quality of the buildings and the benefits they’ve brought, but also because of the way these projects came together during one of the most challenging times for developers in the regions. Most satisfying of all though is seeing local people taking advantage of the job opportunities that have been created at the hotel and elsewhere and the commitment they have shown even in the most difficult circumstances, such as during Covid.”
Mark recognised that there was a gap in Middlesbrough’s provision of both hotels and high quality office space, but knew that the only way to redress this was through working closely with the town’s
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council and the Tees Valley Combined Authority after it came into being nine years ago.
“It was so refreshing to find that the council bought into our vision and also saw the opportunities that existed in the centre of the town,” he said. “The council leaders and their planning teams just weren’t prepared to accept the narrative of the status quo. They understood that it would require everyone working together to change that. That set the standard for what we were able to achieve with the Holiday Inn Express and everything that followed.”
Middlesbrough Council provided a loan of nearly half the cost of building the £12m Holiday Inn Express – which opened in August 2015 – and then a further loan to part fund the extension of the hotel. That brought the number of rooms to 159. They are all in the process of being enhanced through a £1m upgrade programme. The first phase has been completed and the second phase is scheduled for later this year.
After the successful opening of Holiday Inn Express, Mark turned his attention to Centre Square area in the heart of an area which had developed in the nineteenth century as the focal point for industry
COMMERCIAL PROPERTY MONTHLY 2025
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