Signum FM Revitalises Space for a Business Coaching and Training Firm

Company: Accelerated Development Ltd, a business coaching and training company working within the ActionCOACH franchise.

The brief: To oversee the refurbishment of the company’s new commercial property, creating space for two businesses to occupy.

Project duration: Ten weeks

After purchasing a commercial property in Doncaster with a view to moving in to the first floor and leasing the second floor out to another business, Accelerated Development Ltd knew exactly who they wanted to oversee the refurbishment – Signum FM. Mark Perry, Business Coach and owner of Accelerated Development, explains:

“At the end of 2023 we bought a commercial property in Doncaster with a view to moving our business into the first floor and leasing the ground floor to another business.

The building was 20 years old and had hardly been touched since it was built, from a fit-out perspective. It required a full refurbishment and additional services to be added to make it suitable for splitting into two.

I’ve worked with Signum since mid-2019 and knowing both how they work and the care and attention they put into delivering their service, they were the obvious choice to handle the refurb work.

I was looking for a safe pair of hands that could take the organisation and project work on, and complete it to the standard I wanted for both my business and for the section of the building we’re looking to rent out to another business.

Based on the project work they completed I will also now continue to use Signum’s services on an ongoing basis to manage and maintain the property.

Ultimately, I want to be able to focus my time on running my own business, not on managing a commercial property and working with Signum allows me to do that.

The work we did with Signum was to strip out all of the existing flooring, add doorways into existing walls, rebuild 3 WC facilities, install a kitchen facility, and then fully redecorate and bring the building up to the standards we wanted. We also had a heating and cooling system check completed and certain minor electrical work done to improve the usability of the office space. This involved Signum personnel and subcontractors all of which were managed by Signum without my involvement.

From the start of the project the team at Signum took the time to fully understand what we were looking to achieve, provide advice and ideas as to how that could be done and set a project plan that was flexible enough to work with the sometimes frustrating acquisition and handover schedule for the building.

They then made sure the work was carried out to plan and kept me informed of progress.

Where snags and problems were encountered, Signum came back with solutions and options to deal with those issues and then just got on with fixing them.

For me, the real advantage of working with Signum is that I now have the workspace I wanted for my business and for our tenant without having to do anything except make decisions and review progress.

This has meant I’ve been able to concentrate on my business whilst the work has been carried out to a high standard and to the timescale we agreed. It’s meant that the whole process of refurb and moving in has had zero adverse effect on my business and has been as stress free as it could have been.

I really like that I could just hand the whole thing over to Signum and then trust them to just get on with it. That’s also something that I’m pleased I can do for the ongoing management and maintenance of the building in the future.” 

Jill Wood, Managing Director at Signum said: “It’s been a real pleasure working with Mark and the team to deliver this project, creating two dynamic spaces within the one building.

“We’re thrilled Mark is now using Signum for the ongoing maintenance and management of the property, and we look forward to continuing our working relationship with Accelerated Development into the future.”