February 2018 Central London Lettings
April 6, 2018 Leave a comment
Central London office lettings in February 2018 reached just over 1m sq ft of deals from 50 mid-large size transactions (5,000 sq ft+) during the month. The February 2018 figure is in line with the current monthly average of 1m sq ft.
February was characterised by 11 office deals over 20,000 sq ft, which included Sumitomo’s 161,000 sq ft re-letting at 100 Liverpool Street, EC3; Sidley Austin’s 135,000 sq ft pre-letting at 70 St Mary Axe, EC3 and Prudential took 59,000 sq ft at Angel Court Tower, EC2.
Financial Services topped the table of lettings by sector, underpinned by Sumitomo and Prudential deals. This was followed by professional services mainly underpinned by the signing of the Sidley Austin pre-let. Office deals ‘under offer’ in central London stayed at 3.5m sq ft, but pending deal volumes are healthy in nearly all sub-markets, with over 30 deals pending.
By area, the City accounted for 50pc of the office floorspace let in February 2018 at 501,000 sq ft. The West End saw 266,000 sq ft of take-up. Midtown contributed 66,000 sq ft of lettings, plus 143,000 sq ft of Docklands deals. Current London office demand is calculated to be around 3m sq ft in the City and 2.9m sq ft in the West End.
The volume of grade A (newly built or refurbished office space) let during the month reached 557,000 sq ft (55% of the monthly total), as transactions for new space resumed their recent strong showing. Availability is dominated by secondhand space in all London markets.
Metropolis research is currently monitoring 655 ‘live’ London requirements, with deals for space of up to 1.9m sq ft due to sign in the next few months.
Cityoffices is working on its current ‘Skyline Survey’ in London. Further details of office scheme planning applications and consents, with scheme by scheme detail are listed on the Cityoffices.net website. Details on the report and the Cityoffices database from Andy King at andy@metroinfo.co.uk
Metropolis Movers October 2018
November 30, 2018 Leave a comment
Metropolis ran 616 business leads on ‘office movers’ in October 2018. If all reported moves were added together the total would exceed 14 million sq ft of office searches and transactions, researched by Metropolis’ unique market-led intelligence research team, last month.
London was the largest region with 300 business leads during month, but there were also strong showings from the North West (61), South East (52) and Yorkshire (52). Financial services, IT and business services were the largest business sectors planning relocations or agreeing moves during the month.
The relocation leads geographically covered the whole UK and provided details of the size of the office occupier, company likely move dates, a description of the reasons for the move, its business sector and full contact details including an address for written inquiries, at least one telephone number and in most cases an email address. Some of the largest planned moves and top picks amongst the 616 October leads, included those on occupiers Shell UK, IBM, WPP,Jane Street Capital and McCann Worldgroup .
The October 2018 leads included 161 ‘identified requirements’, including 100 in London. Which means that the company confirmed to researchers that it has current or future plans to search for alternative office space. Of these 175 searches, 109 were newly posted office searches, not previously notified to clients.
The most recent research also included 176 ‘potential movers,’ which were mainly longer-term leads on occupiers, considering a future relocation, but the occupier has yet to make a final decision on whether to search.
Most of the remaining stories covered companies that have just signed for new office space and have set a move date, including some large pre-lets and companies inviting tenders for fit-out contracts. The shortest planned move date is just over a month away, whilst the longest was late 2021.
Recent research by Metropolis concluded that a conservative estimate of ‘live’ business tender opportunities on the database in recent months, exceeded £1bn of business.
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Filed under CityOffices.net News, Market Comment, Metropolis Market Reports Tagged with analysis, briefing, London blog, London office market, Metropolis movers, October 2018, office demand, relocations, report, requirement, research, searches, sq ft, take-up, UK office market