For this month’s main investor interview, I spoke with Jerry Alexander, founder of the Commercial Property Investor podcast and director of Inshore Limited.

Jerry was recently named the winner of ‘Commercial Property Deal of Year’ at last year’s Property Investor Awards for his six-year-long creation of flexible co-working spaces at The Four Mill in Dundee.

I start by asking Jerry to give an outline of the award-winning development, which commenced in June 2018 and was completed just over six years later and had an even split between purchase cost (£700,000) and refurbishment cost (£700,000) but now has a current valuation of £2.46m.

“It is located at 34 Commercial Street in Dundee, along with an adjoining unit (20 Exchange Court, Dundee), which was completed during the awards period. This B listed building is 200 years old and located in Dundee city centre, with a net lettable space of 11,000 sq ft.

“Internally it was completely gutted, with a steel frame, concrete floor and actually when you went in there everything was breeze block and ‘1990s modern’ and when we bought it the two buildings were adjoining but eventually we put a hole in the wall and completely transformed the place. One building is 11,000 sq ft and the other is 1,600 sq ft.

“The 7-storey building has had many former uses including a Mill, a boot factory, a nightclub, a masons hall, a mechanics garage, a restaurant, and office space. Rather than develop it into residential we converted the building into a mixture of venue space, private offices, a business lounge and co-working space.”