London West End Autumn 2015 – A Preview
October 14, 2015 Leave a comment
Significant Demand In The Pipeline
This Metropolis blog breaks new ground with an attempt to give clients an insight into the ‘work in progress’ on forthcoming office requirements in the London West End market. In the spirit of those TV autumn trailers, we set out below a flavour of some of the stories we hope to bring Metropolis clients over the next two months.
Some Background
Outstanding, unsatisfied, named office requirements in central London are now estimated by Metropolis to be over 10m sq ft, which is the highest figure since the recession. This can only be an approximate figure as ‘requirements’ cover all types of searches from urgent ones involving tenants in buildings where the lease expires ahead of demolition to half-hearted searches by occupiers who are 90% sure that they will renew the lease, but want to compare the market in order to put some pressure on the existing landlord.
Many of the larger requirements (over 20,000 sq ft) are in advance of lease expiries in 2017-19. However, smaller searches below 10,000 sq ft, are often launched less than 18 months before lease expiry. In many cases the occupier is only looking because it needs more space, has a lease end, or it is affected by redevelopment. The costs of relocation tend to limit the number of ‘sideways moves’ involving a company relocating from one building to another, whilst keeping its occupancy size the same.
Recent West End Activity
Office relocation activity in London’s West End has been a little muted so far in 2015. Figures compiled by Metropolis show Central London take-up in the 8 months to August was 7.6m sq ft, of which only 2m sq ft was to office space in the West End. Some 140,000 sq ft has been pre-let, 450,000 sq ft is grade A newly completed space, with the remainder secondhand.
Some of the larger deals have included Marshall Wace Asset Management’s 43,000 sq ft pre-let of 131 Sloane Street in Knightsbridge; Richemont’s 38,000 sq ft deal at Walmer House on Regents Street and just last month King.com’s letting of 65,000 sq ft at the recently-completed Ampersand Building on Oxford Street. Facebook is also set to confirm its 217,000 sq ft pre-letting of the under construction Rathbone Square in London, W1, which will be the largest West End letting this year.
What’s Coming Up
We are currently researching a number of promising West End leads which look likely to result in 40 named requirements and potentially 1.6m sq ft of office deals.
The majority of office requirements are for a move in 2016 (29), with the remainder lining up moves for 2017 or 2018. Some 23 occupiers are citing expansion as the trigger for their move, while 16 have lease events and the remainder are consolidating fragmented buildings or downsizing.
In terms of the sector, as the graph below shows, it is the media sector which dominates, followed by IT/e-commerce and financial services, including hedge funds and asset managers. The business services sector also remains important with a steady stream of new requirements from serviced office operators.
Around a quarter of companies are looking in the core areas of Mayfair and St James’s, with a further quarter searching in Victoria. A further 25% are searching Soho and north of Oxford Street up to Kings Cross and Euston with the remainder looking in fringe areas such as Camden or Hammersmith.
By size, around half of the 40 requirements are below 20,000 sq ft, with a third between 20,000 and 50,000 sq ft and the remaining five searches are over 100,000 sq ft.
In Conclusion
There is a healthy pipeline of new requirements being launched in London’s West End this autumn. As would be expected, media companies, hedge funds and asset managers are very active, but these have been joined by some of the large e-commerce and social network companies and business service providers to increase the competition for space. Metropolis is working to research the details of these requirements and will be publishing these online for clients shortly.
Copyright Metropolis Property Research Ltd 2015
London Office Letting Forecast for 2019
April 3, 2019 Leave a comment
Metropolis research suggests that despite the political uncertainty, the number of London office occupiers intending to move in 2019 remains in line with previous years. Confirmed office lettings in Q1 2019 are approaching around 2.5m sq ft, which is just below previous years. There are also a large number of companies awaiting a Brexit outcome before confirming move plans in the rest of the year.
Office market analysts report that Central London leasing activity continued to perform positively in 2018, however there remains fear of occupier inertia as a threat to leasing activity in early 2019 with leasing demand slowing in the early part of the year. JLL anticipate this is likely to be short lived as so much of today’s demand is structural – lease breaks and expiries – and a bounce back is expected in the latter part of the year. Tech employment is forecast to overtake banking and financial services in terms of total numbers employed. The tech sector is expected to take a larger part of London lettings during the next 12 months.
West End take-up is outperforming the 10-year average with the services sector was the most active. Some of the momentum was provided by Facebook’s acquisition of circa 600,000 sq ft in King’s Cross, followed by the business services sector with a share of 30% driven by flexible workspace providers. Flexible space is accounting for 22% of take-up volumes with several new entrants taking space including independent operators as well as British Land’s Storey and Brockton’s FORA.
Pre-letting remains a key driver of the leasing market and on an annual basis, pre-leasing accounted for 36% of take-up. Under offers in the West End are down slightly on the back of strong leasing volumes, but they remain well above the 10-year average, Active demand totalled 4.0 million sq ft and remains above the 10-year average Demand is being driven by business services followed by finance and media.
In the City, office take-up is surpassing the 10-year average with business service the most active, driven by the flexible workspace and insurance sectors. Flexible workspace providers continued
to expand rapidly, however the largest recent transaction to an insurance company was at Twentytwo Bishopsgate, EC2 where Beazley Group have pre-let 50,000 sq ft. WPP plc have pre-let 210,000 sq ft at 1 Southwark Bridge Road, SE1 and McCann have pre-leased 127,000 sq ft at 135 Bishopsgate, EC2.
In the City during 2018, pre-letting was at its highest level since 2000 in terms of volume and at peak levels in terms of proportion of activity (39%). Both space under offer and demand remain ahead of 10-year average levels. Space under offer is 1.4 million sq ft and active demand is 6.3 million sq ft.
In conclusion, trends in 2019 are likely to continue the patterns of 2018, albeit after a slow start in the first half of the year. However, the accumulated weight of demand and the impending pressure of upto a thousand lease expiries due over the next 12 months is likely to keep London lettings healthy.
Filed under Market Comment, Metropolis Market Reports Tagged with demand, Leasing, London, metropolis property research, sq ft, under offer