September 10, 2015

Rental growth continues across UK’s core commercial property markets ⁰

by Mark Eltringham • Cities, News, Property

The recent growth in prime headline office rents has continued across the UK’s regional commercial property markets with an average increase of 4.3 percent across the UK’s ‘Core 8’ markets in the 12 months to June 2015, according to a report from property consultants JLL. The Core 8 cities are the UK’s largest metropolitan economies and are a distinct group from the Government’s definition of core cities. In the JLL study they comprise Birmingham, Bristol, Leeds (above), Manchester, London, Cardiff, Edinburgh and Glasgow. Reflecting the solid outlook for demand and tight supply of new space, the report claims that headline rents are expected to continue on an upward curve with average growth of 2.9 percent per year in the Core 8 region over the period. One of the key drivers for rent growth remains a mismatch between demand and supply. More →

September 10, 2015

Shared office ruling could cost Scottish firms millions more in rates ⁰

by Sara Bean • Facilities management, Legal news, News, Property

Large firms that occupy several separate floors in a prime office may need to pay tens of thousands of pounds more in rates, property managers have been warned. The decision by the UK Supreme Court on business rates in shared office buildings will lead to higher fees for many businesses in Scotland, according to commercial property experts at Colliers International. The firm says that the case of Woolway Valuation Office v Mazars, in which the Supreme Court held that businesses occupying space across several floors should pay separate rates for each, will lead to changes in valuations across the country that will cost firms millions of pounds. Up until now, such arrangements were charged as a “single occupation” and benefited from economies of scale. Paying for two separate sets of rates is likely to be more expensive, and the court decision even allows for the changes to be implemented retrospectively.

September 9, 2015

London firms optimistic, but want improvements to infrastructure ⁰

by Sara Bean • News, Property, Workplace

The number of firms planning to expand in London is at its highest level (50 percent) since 2012, though retaining employees and improving the capital’s infrastructure remain key concerns. According to the re-launched CBI/CBRE London Business Survey, over half of companies (55 percent) are increasing head counts, although three in five firms (60 percent) only hire where essential. London firms’ optimism has rebounded from last year, with almost half of companies (47 percent) feeling more positive about the UK’s economic prospects in the next six months – reversing the steady decline seen since the first quarter of 2014 – and 40 percent feel more positive about business prospects. Nearly four in five businesses (76 percent) highlighted improving the capital’s transport infrastructure as the number one issue the new Mayor of London must get down to tackling when they enter City Hall next year.

September 7, 2015

Carbuncle Cup winner, the ‘Walkie Talkie’ is nearly fully let ⁰

by Sara Bean • Architecture, News, Property

It may have the dubious distinction of being awarded the Carbuncle Cup of the year; but 20 Fenchurch Street in the City of London, better known as the ‘Walkie Talkie’ is now almost 98 percent let. Canary Wharf Group and Land Securities have announced that Castleton Commodities International (“CCI”) has leased the top office floor of the building on a long term lease. With the recent letting of level 31 to credit rating agency DBRS, just 15,000 sq ft of office space remains at the 37 storey building, which has been accused of creating a wind tunnel around its base and has also required alterations to its façade after it was found to be reflecting and magnifying light from the sun onto nearby streets. According to Magesh Nair, CCI’s Chief Operating Officer the building will provide the operational resilience required for its business, and is an “optimal environment for our employees and visitors.”

September 4, 2015

UK surveyors remain slow to adopt BIM despite awareness of risks ⁰

by Mark Eltringham • News, Property, Technology

According to a new survey from the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, around a half (49 percent) of surveyors do not use Building Information Modelling (BIM) on a regular basis, despite the fact that a significant majority (74 percent) have considered the business case and a similar proportion (73 percent) acknowledge that non-adoption will create significant challenges for the UK construction sector. When asked for the reason for non-adoption. around two thirds (68 percent) feel they lack the information to adopt BIM properly, a third (31 percent) claim there is no need for their own firm and a quarter (26 percent) say they lack the technical skills needed for adoption. This is in spite of that fact that over half of all respondents (55 percent) say that they are currently working with architects that use BIM.

September 2, 2015

And the unsurprising winner of the Carbuncle Cup this year is… ⁰

by Mark Eltringham • Architecture, News, Property

In one of the least surprising announcements of the year so far, Building Design magazine has announced that this year’s winner of its annual Carbuncle Cup is London’s Walkie Talkie. The building, officially 20 Fenchurch Street in the City of London, was always the frontrunner. Its bulbous 37-storey design has always been a source of contention with the Government, UNESCO and English Heritage raising objections to its impact on the London skyline. During its construction it raised practical concerns in addition to its undeniable aesthetic challenges and the shaky design of its ‘sky garden’, most notably by reflecting and concentrating sunlight to fry the street below (a problem solved by a multi-million pound investment in alterations to the facade) and by funnelling strong winds around its base (an issue that has prompted a wider look into the impact of tall buildings at street level).

August 31, 2015

BSI revises design and construction standard for facilities managers ⁰

by Neil Franklin • Architecture, Facilities management, News, Property

BSI, the UK based organisation responsible for developing and publishing standards for businesses, has revised BS 8536-1 Briefing for design and construction: Code of practice for facilities management (Buildings infrastructure). The standard has been included in the Level 2 BIM package which the Government expects companies to offer when tendering for Government contracts. The standard has now been brought into line with the principles of the Soft Landings Framework and Government Soft Landings (GSL) post occupancy evaluation and BIM requirement. Soft landings is designed to enable the transition from design and construction into operation. It advocates collaboration during briefing, design, construction and handover between the design and construction team and the operator, operations team or facilities manager.

August 25, 2015

Flexible working and coworking are disrupting property markets worldwide ⁰

by Mark Eltringham • Flexible working, News, Property

Coworking space and the growth of flexible are already having a major disruptive effect on commercial property markets worldwide, according to a study from real estate trade association CoreNet Global. The survey of members representing a diverse range of sectors found that the two most disruptive trends in the market over the short to medium term are flexible working environments (64 percent) and new technology (64 percent). The report, which has been issued to CoreNet members ahead of the organisation’s 2015 EMEA Summit which will take place in London in September, claims that coworking spaces are capitalising on these trends to have a major disruptive effect on local property markets and are particularly attractive to occupiers from specific sectors such as those working in financial technology.

August 24, 2015

Demand for commercial office space in UK cities continues to surge ⁰

by Mark Eltringham • Cities, News, Property

According to the latest quarterly update from property advisors Knight Frank, demand for commercial office space in the UK’s regional markets remains remarkably strong, driving upward pressure on rental prices and increasing the demand for new commercial property developments. According to the report, demand is up by around a half compared to the previous quarter, with Birmingham enjoying the largest increase of around 400 percent. Strong economic growth is reflected in healthy occupier demand, which saw a total of 2.08m sq ft taken up in the three months to the end of June, which was 51 percent ahead of the first quarter and 49 percent above the five year quarterly average. The stand out let was HSBC’s at Birmingham’s Arena Central development (top) which accounted for fully half of the city’s take up of space and which we reported here.

August 10, 2015

London is leading the way in the global coworking revolution ⁰

by Mark Eltringham • Flexible working, News, Property, Workplace design

Changing attitudes amongst occupiers towards office space and the explosion in the numbers of freelance workers and microbusinesses are driving an upsurge in coworking and other flexible working environments worldwide. That is the key conclusion of a new report from DTZ which claims that the number of dedicated flexible working locations worldwide is likely to hit 50,000 over the next three years, with parts of London leading the way. We reported recently how coworking pioneer WeWork has already announced its plans to dominate London’s commercial property scene in the same way it already does Manhattan’s. Now, the How You Work report from DTZ suggests that this is the shape of things to come for many cities, with London leading the way alongside a tranche of global tech and creative centres such as New York, Berlin and Shanghai.

August 6, 2015

Infographic: The workplace week in numbers, for 7 August ⁰

by Mark Eltringham • Facilities management, Flexible working, Property, Workplace, Workplace design

August 6, 2015

Government publishes details of £118 bn pipeline of construction projects ⁰

by Mark Eltringham • Facilities management, Knowledge, News, Property, Public Sector

The UK Government, in conjunction with construction industry data specialist Barbour ABI, has published a full detailed list of around £118 billion of publicly funded building projects scheduled for the next five years. You can find the pipeline as a spreadsheet here, with the data broken down by sector and including some basic data for each project. The Government has also introduced a dedicated website with details of the projects with updates to the raw data available via both the central government website and at data.gov.uk. The government construction pipeline is now updated twice a year which the Government claims will ‘extend its reach beyond the major construction spending departments and improve the integrity of the data’ and demonstrate its commitment ‘to continuous engagement with industry and government clients on current use and future improvements’.