Search Results for: investment

April 3, 2014

Plans unveiled for London’s £1.5 billion Silvertown Quays development

Plans have been released for the £1.5 billion redevelopment of Silvertown Quays in the East of London. The 7 million sq. ft. mixed use scheme will cover 62 acres on the site of the Royal Docks directly opposite the Excel exhibition centre. The development will include around 2.5 million sq. ft. of commercial and retail space, and some 2,500 new homes along with education, research and exhibition facilities. As announced by London Mayor Boris Johnson in 2013, one of the key features of the project will be an avenue of ‘brand pavilions’, where companies from across the world will be invited to showcase their products. The district will be served by a new bridge connecting it to the ExCel site giving access to transport links, including the new Crossrail station with express services to the City of London, West End and beyond.

March 31, 2014

BCO report claims to reveal link between green offices and business performance

by Mark Eltringham • Environment, Facilities management, News

A new report from the British Council for Offices claims that building owners could enjoy significant savings in their operating costs of up to £50 per square metre as well as improved staff productivity and wellbeing by investing in environmentally friendly offices and work practices. The research, Improving the Environmental Performance of Offices claims to illustrate the benefits of energy efficient offices and highlight the positive impact they can have on employee productivity. The report calls on building occupiers to focus on key areas such as benchmarking and monitoring their energy usage. The BCO believes there is already a shift in attitudes towards a greater understanding of how offices actually perform environmentally rather than simply how they are designed and that more and more businesses are waking up to specific issues such as how much energy their buildings use outside of office hours. More →

March 14, 2014

Might a lack of joined-up thinking undermine UK high-tech ambitions?

by Mark Eltringham • Comment, News, Property, Technology

Old Street: the UK’s tech epicentre

Over the past week both Prime Minister David Cameron and London Mayor Boris Johnson have offered up visions of economic success founded on new technology. Yet, as the CBI points out in a new report pinpointing the dearth of talent needed to make such dreams a reality, politicians often appear to ignore the realities of a situation. In its new report, Engineering our Future, the CBI calls for significant action to make a career in the key disciplines of science, technology, engineering and maths more attractive and easier to pursue. The report points out that these are the skills needed to underpin the Government’s stated focus on the tech, environmental, engineering and manufacturing industries that will shape the country’s future and is calling for a cut in tuition fees, new courses and inter-disciplinary qualifications to allow those skills to flourish.

March 12, 2014

£56m office development planned for Salford’s regeneration area

by Sara Bean • Company news, News, Property, Public Sector

Work is to start on a £56m Grade A office and car park development in Salford’s Greengate Embankment regeneration area. The joint venture partners behind the development are Carillion, Ask Real Estate and Tristan Capital Partners, with Carillion acting as the main contractor. Work on the site, which was part of the former Manchester Exchange railway station, will start in June, with delivery of the 172,640sq ft office and car park planned for spring 2016. Salford City Council has signed an eight-year pre-lease on the whole of the first office building and Q-Park has agreed a 35 year pre-lease for the 442 space car park. The site, which was acquired from Network Rail, also has planning permission for a second phase which comprises another Grade A office building providing 150,000 sq ft of space. More →

March 7, 2014

UK commercial property thriving, as domestic investors shy from London

by Mark Eltringham • News, Property

Edinburgh is one city enjoying a resurgence in investment

The distinctions between the commercial property market in London and those in the rest of the UK are becoming increasingly evident, based on new data from DTZ. While the value of transactions hit a record breaking £44.7 billion last year, up nearly a third on the figures for 2012, the majority of investments into regional markets were made by domestic firms while those in London were dominated by overseas investors. Around £23 billion of the overall total was invested in property outside of the capital, a reversal of last year when more money was invested in the capital than outside it. Meanwhile foreign investors spent a total of £20bn throughout the year with the majority (£14.2 bn) invested in Central London. According to DTZ, one notable trend in the year was for UK investors to divest property in London and shift investment to other areas of the UK.

March 6, 2014

Business continuity report confirms technology still biggest threat to firms

by Mark Eltringham • News, Technology

Forget the recent UK floods. When it comes to risks to their businesses, it’s still tech that keeps business leaders awake at night, according to the latest annual Business Continuity Institute Horizon Scan report. Technology related threats continue to rank higher than natural disasters, security and industrial action according to the report which gauges the threats that organisations consider to be their biggest concerns. Nearly four-fifths of business leaders fear that an unplanned technological event, cyber attack or data breach will harm their business. Nearly three quarters (73 percent) consider malicious attacks through the Internet a major threat that needs to be managed closely, while nearly two-thirds (63 percent) think that social media remains a challenge. Meanwhile, one of last year’s threats – supply chain resilience – dropped out of the top ten completely.

March 5, 2014

New data suggests that London no longer belongs to the UK, but the World

by Mark Eltringham • Comment, News, Property

Image: London Snap

One of the subjects touched on in the first episode of Evan Davis’s BBC documentary series about the economic distinctions between London and the rest of the UK Mind the Gap was the impact of investment by the global super-rich into London property. At one point he asked the Malaysian investor behind the £8 billion Battersea Power Station redevelopment whether he’d considered investing in other cities in the UK. The response was a straight no, but the accompanying glance said rather more. London is no longer a British city but one that belongs to the world, it said, so any comparison with Manchester, Birmingham, Bristol, Leeds, Cardiff and Edinburgh is meaningless. You might disagree with this point of view, but a raft of new data appears to make it very evident indeed that London is now shaped by global plutocrats in a way that cannot be mirrored in the rest of the UK.

March 3, 2014

World Green Building Council to quantify productivity benefits of sustainability

by Mark Eltringham • Architecture, Environment, Facilities management, Property

In an attempt to broaden the business case for sustainable building, the World Green Building Council has launched a new initiative to define the productivity and wellbeing benefits associated with low carbon and sustainable property. The initiative, launched ahead of this week’s Ecobuild conference in London, will be steered by a group of experts who will produce a final report later in the year. The premise of the study is to show that, as well as cutting costs and improving environmental performance, green buildings have a beneficial effect on the health, wellness and productivity of occupants. According to the announcement, around 85 per cent of an average organisation’s costs are associated with salaries and other costs of employment so a modest improvement in productivity can have a huge impact.

February 27, 2014

UK Government urged to push ahead with zero carbon commercial buildings

by Mark Eltringham • Architecture, Environment, Facilities management, Legal news, News, Property

The UK’s Green Building Council has fired off its latest salvo in an ongoing battle with the Government over the implementation of environmental legislation for commercial buildings. A new report from the organisation’s Task Group urges the Government to push ahead with plans to ensure that by 2019 all new non domestic buildings will be built to zero carbon standards. The report claims that the implementation of appropriate regulations is hampered by a lack of clarity, including confusion over what zero carbon actually means as well as the government’s own stop-start approach to the environment. The current 2019 commitment to zero carbon buildings falls a year ahead of the deadline specified in European Law, but a recent focus from the coalition on reducing relevant legislation has added to confusion about the overall approach.

February 24, 2014

London conference debates international office measurement standard

by Sara Bean • Facilities management, News, Property

The implementation of an international property measurement standard for offices (IPMS for Offices) moved forward last week when a group of leading professional bodies from across the world met at RICS’ HQ in London. The two-day meeting (20-21 Feb 2014) brought together representatives from many of the 31 member organisations of the International Property Measurement Standard Coalition (IPMSC), who discussed plans for the launch and implementation of IPMS across international real estate markets. A rise in cross-border property investment and expansion by global corporate occupiers has exposed the difficulties that can arise when dealing with differing national and local measurement practices. The first of its kind, IPMS seeks to standardise the way office space is measured around the world. More →

February 24, 2014

HS2 is a project for today projected into an uncertain future

by Mark Eltringham • Comment, Facilities management, Flexible working, Technology

Barely a day passes in the media without some new battleground opening up in the debate about the UK’s plan to develop HS2, the high speed line connecting London with Birmingham, Leeds, Manchester, Sheffield and, for some reason, a place nobody’s heard of halfway between Derby and Nottingham called Toton (pop. 7,298). While the debate rages about the cost, the economic benefits, regional rebalancing, environmental impact, route and why the Scots and others are paying for a project that may leave them with worse train services, one of the fundamental flaws with the case for HS2 goes largely disregarded. It is that this is clearly a project designed for today, but that won’t be complete for another twenty years. The world then will be very different and, unfortunately, time isn’t quite as malleable as the movies would have us believe.

February 20, 2014

European cities vie to wear Tech Hub crown

by Mark Eltringham • News, Property, Technology

You may not realise it, but apparently there is a close fought race being run between European cities for the title of European Tech Hub. According to a new report from Colliers International the front runners are London, Berlin, Dublin, Paris, Amsterdam, Munich and, in a Eurovision-like extension of Europe’s borders, Tel Aviv. London is currently in pole position but Berlin and Dublin are hot on its heels as they vie for the title of Europe’s ‘Silicon Valley’, according to latest research from Colliers International, global real estate advisors. According to the report, London needs to stay on its toes if it is to fend off the upstarts from Germany and Ireland. Berlin, in particular, is expected to add some 100,000 jobs to its tech sector within the next seven years.