Office take-up in London at highest point in last 12 months, boosted by pre-let activity

Office take-up in London at highest point in last 12 months, boosted by pre-let activity

by • Cities, Facilities management, News, Property

Office take-up in London at highest point in last 12 months, driven by pre-let activityCentral London commercial offices under offers are at the highest point in the last 12 months and take-up is ahead of 2017 levels compared with this point last year, new data from CBRE has shown.  Central London office take-up for April 2018 stood at 547,900 sq ft, largely driven by pre-letting activity. Office take-up for the year to the end April 2018 was 4 percent higher than the corresponding period in 2017, standing at 3.4m sq ft. Take-up was boosted by 139,600 sq ft of pre-letting activity. Over the last 12 months, the business services sector has represented the largest proportion of take-up at 32 percent, driven by a large number of deals to flexible office providers. Take-up in April was dominated by the creative industries sector, accounting for 44 percent of take-up. The banking and finance sector (26 percent) and the business services sector (21 percent) also represented notable proportions of take-up in April.

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Manchester incubator aims to develop region’s strength in tech and research

Manchester incubator aims to develop region’s strength in tech and research

by • Cities, News, Property, Technology

Manchester Science Partnerships (MSP) has opened its new £2m tech incubator which it hopes will help create up to 2,000 jobs in data science and technology innovation companies over the next decade. Reflecting the ambitions of the updated Greater Manchester strategy to build on the city region’s strengths in technology and digital innovation, the incubator will provide start-ups with a wide package of business support services including: access to finance, talent and markets advice. Manchester is already a European top 20 digital city and this new incubator is designed play a role in strengthening the city’s status as a location for technology businesses over the coming years.

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London’s tech startups and SMEs shift focus from normal hotspots to migrate South of the river

London’s tech startups and SMEs shift focus from normal hotspots to migrate South of the river

by • News, Property

Hubble, an office and coworking marketplace, has published new data which it claims shows that tech startups and other growing SMEs in London are leaving the capital’s best known tech hotspots, including Shoreditch and Soho, for south of the river.  Hubble’s search data suggests that London Bridge (29 percent of all searches) is the most popular location in London for companies searching for flexible office space in 2018 (a sharp rise from 3.7 percent of searches in 2017), beating Shoreditch with 27 percent of all searches. More than 37 percent of searches were for office space in south London, counting London Bridge and the Southbank (8.5 percent). Startups and SMEs are branching out to different creative “hub-spots” within London, but most prominently is an unprecedented shift to south of the river. Searches for London Bridge specifically make up 29 percent of all searches and the Southbank, as a whole, making up 37.5 percent of all search queries.

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Manchester offices dominate BCO Awards for North of England

Manchester offices dominate BCO Awards for North of England

by • News, Property, Workplace design

Manchester based businesses dominated the annual British Council for Offices (BCO) regional property sector awards dinner held in Manchester at the end of last week.  Shoosmiths LLP, Hilson Moran, Neo and The Bright Building all being recognised as some of the best workplaces in the North of England.  Other workplaces across the North of England that also received recognition were Number One Kirkstall Forge, Leeds (Winner, Best Commercial Workplace, Waterfront Point, Widnes (Winner, Best Corporate Workspace and Albert Works, Sheffield (Winner, Best Projects up to 1,500 m2)

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Commercial property lending surged in the second half of 2017

Commercial property lending surged in the second half of 2017

by • News, Property

facilities managementCommercial property lending in the UK surged at the end of last year, according to the latest figures from Cass Business School. New commercial property lending overall reached £44.5bn for the whole year, equalling figures for the previous year. Commercial lending had dropped by 24 per cent in the first half of the year, however, the second half of 2017 was much busier, adding another £26.8bn in new lending. The total value of loan books identified by the CASS research increased by four per cent to £199bn by the end of the year, including both drawn and undrawn amounts. The research from Cass showed that non-bank lenders were actually the most active group, increasing their market share of new loans to 14 per cent from 10 per cent a year earlier. In total, they wrote £6bn of new loans of which 60 per cent was sourced from insurance and pension funds

Canada leads the way in worldwide surge in adoption of green buildings

Canada leads the way in worldwide surge in adoption of green buildings

by • Architecture, Environment, News, Property

Major metropolitan office markets across the globe are seeing a significant increase in the adoption of green building certification programmes, according to the inaugural International Green Building Adoption Index (IGBAI) – a study by CBRE and Maastricht University. The study reports that 18.6 percent of space in 10 markets across Australia, Canada and Europe is now certified green versus just 6.4 percent in 2007. Canadian cities set the pace, with 51.6 percent of the space in Vancouver (pictured) and 51.0 percent in Toronto holding green certifications. This is particularly notable for Vancouver, as the city has a formal initiative and action plan – “Greenest City 2020” – toward becoming the greenest city in the world by 2020. In Vancouver and Toronto, green buildings trends will continue to drive both new development and redevelopment of office product. In Vancouver, more than half of the 1.5 million-square feet of product under development is being built to high green certification standards, while much of Toronto’s existing class A product is undergoing intensive capital improvement projects that include upgrades aimed at earning green certifications as well.

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WELL Building Standard increases adoption rate in Europe

WELL Building Standard increases adoption rate in Europe

by • Environment, Facilities management, News, Property

The International WELL Building Institute (IWBI) claims that its WELL Building Standard has now been adopted in more than 780 projects worldwide, covering 147 million square feet of real estate in 32 countries. In Europe more than 170 projects across 13 countries are applying WELL, representing a quarter of of global project square footage. According to the Institute, the growth over the past year has been led by early adopter markets, notably France, United Kingdom, and the Netherlands – as well as new expansion in Poland, Sweden and Ireland. Finland, Germany, Hungary and Italy, which registered their first projects in 2017.  Nearly 300 industry professionals in Europe have now passed the WELL Accredited Professional exam.

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Best workplaces in London honoured at the British Council for Offices annual Regional Awards

Best workplaces in London honoured at the British Council for Offices annual Regional Awards

by • News, Property, Workplace design

Five businesses celebrated success last night, with Bloomberg, White Collar Factory, Havas UK, Here East and 10 Lower James Street all recognised as some of the best workplaces in London at the British Council for Offices’ (BCO) regional awards. The BCO’s awards programme claims to recognise the highest quality workplaces and sets the standard for excellence across the regional and national office sectors.

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Demand for commercial office space in London’s West End at highest level for six years

Demand for commercial office space in London’s West End at highest level for six years

by • Cities, Facilities management, News, Property

Nova development at VictoriaTake up of commercial office leases in London’s West End had its strongest start to the year since 2012, with the banking and finance sector continuing to actively seek space, new figures from CBRE have revealed. The amount of office space under offer on in Central London at the end of Q1 2018 stood at 3.2m sq ft, representing an increase of 6 percent on the previous quarter and showing a 3 percent increase on the same point last year. Take-up in Central London reached 2.8m sq ft in Q1 2018, with its largest deal boasting a 65,900 sq ft letting to WS Atkins at Nova North in Victoria. Availability in Central London increased by 7 percent to 14.3m sq ft but that is still below the total 12 months ago. A total of 1.1m sq ft of development and refurbishment space completed in Q1. A further 2.3m sq ft is expected to complete before the end of the year, of which 54 percent has already been committed to be leased. By the end of the quarter, 9.1m sq ft was being actively sought by occupiers, primarily from the banking and finance sector (26 percent) and creative industries sector (24 percent).

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Number of skyscrapers under construction in London tops 500 for first time

Number of skyscrapers under construction in London tops 500 for first time

by • News, Property

The number of skyscrapers being built in London has exceeded 500 for the first time, raising fears of further damage to the capital’s skyline. There are 510 towers of more than 20 storeys under construction or in the planning process, more than ever before. That is a rise of 12 per cent on a year ago, according to the annual report by GL Hearn, the property consultancy, and think tank New London Architecture. A record 115 towers are already under construction, up from 91 in 2016, but the number of applications is down by 10 per cent, according to the study.

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Local authorities spend £3.8bn on commercial property in last five years

Local authorities spend £3.8bn on commercial property in last five years

by • News, Property, Public Sector

Local authorities have invested around £3.8 bn in commercial property over the last five years, a new study claims. The report (registration required) from property consultancy Carter Jonas and Revo claims that of the £3.8 bn invested, nearly half was spent on the acquisition of office space. It found that Spelthorne Borough Council in Surrey (pictured)  was the largest local authority investor committing £477.1 m to assets within its domain. This is more than double its nearest rival Warrington Borough Council (£219.5 m) and is largely down to the purchase of BP’s International Centre for Business & Technology in Sunbury for £360 m.

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Brexit: CBI stresses importance of getting new rules right for UK construction

Brexit: CBI stresses importance of getting new rules right for UK construction

by • Facilities management, News, Property, Public Sector

Brexit: CBI stresses importance of getting new rules right for construction

Brexit presents opportunities for rule changes in sectors such as agriculture, shipping and tourism that could ultimately benefit the British economy and consumers. This is according to a new CBI study, “Smooth Operations, compiled over a six-month period, which states that the opportunities for divergence are vastly outweighed by the costs of deviating from rules necessary to ensure smooth access to the EU market. Another important finding is that changes to rules in one sector have significant knock on effects for companies in other sectors and throughout supply chains. There are specific regulatory needs for the construction sector, according to the report, the first being regulatory convergence on rules for construction products and materials, vital to protect the competitiveness of manufacturers and avoid major barriers to trade. The CBI also argues that maintaining equivalence in procurement rules between the UK and EU is important, but there are still opportunities to improve how the UK procures work in the construction sector without diverging from EU rules.

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