Padel craze drives demand for industrial property
Padel operators have leased out more than one million square feet of industrial space in the last 18 months, as the UK’s newest sports craze takes over the country’s warehouses.
The volume of square feet snapped up for Britain’s fastest-growing racquet sport in the past year and a half is almost seven times that in the preceding 18 months, City PM can reveal.
While padel is changing the habits of millions of sport-loving Brits, it could also change the face of the UK’s industrial spaces, as the sport becomes the newest – and most novel – use of warehouses.
More than 784,000 sq ft was acquired by padel operators last year, up 390 per cent from the year before, according to real estate data firm CoStar. More than 390,000 sq ft has been leased for padel so far this year.
Large operators like Padel Hub and Pure Padel have taken up space across the UK in recent months, ranging from small units to modern warehouses exceeding 60,000 sq ft.
One 60,000 sq ft deal was agreed last month, when Padel Bonito agreed a 10-year lease on a warehouse on the outskirts of Sheffield.
Padel is increasingly becoming a major tenant of the UK’s millions of square feet of industrial space, alongside traditional uses like logistics, film studios and data centres, according to Grant Lonsdale, senior director of market analytics at CoStar.
He said: “Few would have predicted a racket sport becoming a meaningful contributor to industrial take-up, but the trend underlines the sector’s ability to keep finding new demand pools.”
Warehouses are well-suited to padel because they offer large spaces, high ceilings and ample parking, Lonsdale said.
“But the volume and spread of recent lettings suggest the sector is moving beyond opportunistic conversions and establishing itself as a distinct occupier category,” he added.
The number of people playing padel more than doubled to 860,000 last year, according to the Lawn Tennis Association (LTA).
Celebrity sportspeople, including tennis player Andy Murray, former cricketer Michael Vaughan and footballer Virgil van Dijk, have driven padel’s popularity.
Last month, FTSE 100 property developer Segro partnered with the LTA to support its rollout of padel facilities across the UK.
Segro is one of Europe’s leading owners of warehouses and has focused on leasing data centres in recent years as AI investment sends demand soaring. But the property developer said this investment in padel ties in with its ambitions to use industrial space to “enable extraordinary things to happen”.
James Craddock, Segro’s UK managing director, said when announcing the partnership: “This partnership with the LTA reflects our commitment to widening opportunity and supporting wellbeing through sport.
“By also working in tandem to deliver a new grassroots padel programme, we are helping to remove barriers to participation and open up the sport to more communities across the UK.”