June 25, 2019

Dublin EFMC conference brings together the facilities world

by Freddie Steele • Facilities management, News

The Aviva Stadium in Dublin hosted from 13th to 14th June the 27th Edition of EFMC, the European Facility Management Conference. The event, held for the first time in the Irish capital, has brought together international experts of the FM sector and has served as a platform of communication amongst facilities managers, suppliers, Universities and associations. The event culminated with tours of One Microsoft Place and the offices of Google in the Irish capital. In the closing ceremony it was announced that EFMC 2020 will be held in Barcelona. More →

June 25, 2019

Surge in demand for London office space

by Neil Franklin • News, Property

May 2019 saw a total of 13.3m sq ft of London office space under construction across 98 developments. 60 percent of this space has already been let or is under offer, the highest level to be achieved in over 15 years. This is according to new data from real estate advisor CBRE. Take-up of office space rose above the 10-year average in May 2019, increasing to 1.2m sq ft. There were eighty transactions, of which twelve were greater than 20,000 sq ft in size. The largest deal of the month saw the European Bank for Reconstruction & Development take 358,700 sq ft at Five Bank Street (pictured). More →

June 21, 2019

Flexible office revolution shows no signs of slowing

by Neil Franklin • News, Property, Workplace design

The latest research from JLL, Disruption or distraction, where next for the UK flex market sector, claims that the real revolution of flexible office space lies in the variety of solutions now on offer and that the market has seen more changes over the last three years than the previous 30 combined as it continues to grow and evolve. JLL’s research claims that over the next five years more than 10m sq ft will be added to the stock in the key UK cities and flex space will account for over 8.5 percent of the total office stock by 2023. More →

June 21, 2019

HSBC strikes 1000 desk deal with WeWork

by Mark Eltringham • Coworking, News, Property

HSBC has agreed a deal to locate more than a thousand members of London staff in a WeWork coworking space in London. WeWork confirmed to the Financial Times that the bank has signed up for 1,135 desks at its new building at 2 Southbank Place. The move is further proof of how coworking has become a mainstream option for large corporations as they seek to get more value our of their property and introduce new working methods. HSBC’s corporate real estate team and other staff already work from coworking spaces, but the new deal marks a step change in its strategy.

Image: WeWork’s existing coworking space at Waterloo

June 20, 2019

EDGE enters UK market with project on South Bank

by Neil Franklin • Company news, Property, Technology

EDGE Technologies, the specialist developer best known for its groundbreaking The Edge building in Amsterdam has announced its entrance into the UK commercial property market with the £50m acquisition of 60 St Thomas Street on London’s South Bank. The acquisition is subject to planning permission, which EDGE will pursue in partnership with the seller. The partners will consult closely with Southwark Council and the local community. After completion of the development – four to five years from now – 60 St Thomas Street will be an optimised office environment and a new workspace fit for the future. More →

June 17, 2019

Workers go cold on hot desking

by Mark Eltringham • News, Workplace design

The practice of sharing workstations with fellow workers is making people increasingly unhappy, according to a survey of more than 1,000 office workers by real estate firm Savills, who for some reason still insist on referring to it as hot desking in spite of the fact that the idea covers a range of practices that are not hot desking. According to the firm’s study, a mere 12 percent of people believe sharing workstations with their colleagues make them more productive. Half claimed it made them less productive, compared to around a third in a related study two years ago. More →

June 7, 2019

Flexible working held back by poor data

by Neil Franklin • News

Many managers still rely on gut feelings and inadequate or flawed data to make important but potentially poor decisions about real estate and flexible working. That is the main conclusion of a new piece of research by flexible workplace specialist Abintra. Published in a new report, the study highlights how corporations are struggling to manage office space efficiently as the trend towards agile and flexible working gathers momentum.

June 3, 2019

Come for the rent, stay for the experience of coworking

by Aki Stamatis • Comment, Coworking, Workplace design

When attending last year’s CoreNet Global Summit in Boston, there was a poll of the real estate executives gathered to discuss the key trends affecting the world of commercial property. During the event we were asked about our attitudes to coworking by the event organisers and Cushman & Wakefield. What emerged was a portrait of genuine revolution in real estate thinking. The number of employees from the respondents’ organisations using coworking space had doubled in the previous two years and now stood at around 11 percent of all employees. More →

May 21, 2019

London office building at post Brexit high

by Mark Eltringham • News, Property

New office building in central London is at a three-year high, with 13.2 million square feet of space under construction, up 12 percent on the figure six months ago, according to the Deloitte Real Estate’s London Office Crane Survey. Some 55 percent of the office space under construction was already let and for larger schemes of over 100,000 square feet, more than three quarters was already committed to, Deloitte said. The survey covers seven major central London office markets – The City, West End, Docklands, King’s Cross, Midtown, Paddington, Southbank – as well as three emerging submarkets – Vauxhall-Nine Elms-Battersea, White City and Stratford. More →

May 21, 2019

CRE investment highest in cities with strong tech culture

by Marie Hillen • Cities, News, Property, Technology

Cities with tech innovation-oriented cultures have a strong competitive advantage amongst those investing in commercial real estate, claims a new report from JLL (registration). Of 109 cities analysed, the nine leading global markets – Boston, London, New York, Paris, San Francisco, Seattle, San Jose, Sydney and Tokyo, accounted for around 37 percent of total annual real estate investment volumes over the past decade. Like real estate investors, corporate occupiers also search for locations that have advanced innovation ecosystems, the report suggests. These cities sustain highly skilled workforces and are best placed to succeed in the future.

May 16, 2019

Working from home and the future of work. How quaint ⁰

by Mark Eltringham • Comment, Flexible working, Property, Technology

In 1962, a professor of communication studies called Everett Rogers came up with the principle we call diffusion of innovation. It’s a familiar enough notion, widely taught and works by plotting the adoption of new ideas and products over time as a bell curve, before categorising groups of people along its length as innovators, early adopters, early majority, late majority, and laggards. It’s a principle bound up with human capital theory and so its influence has endured for over 50 years, albeit in a form compressed by our accelerated proliferation of ideas. It may be useful, but it lacks a third dimension in the modern era. That is, a way of describing the numbers of people who are in one category but think they are in another.

May 9, 2019

Property investors cool on issue of climate change

by Mark Eltringham • Environment, News, Property

According to a RICS global survey of Commercial and Construction market professionals, in the UK, 47 percent of respondents reported that climate change risks are not important or irrelevant for investors. In addition, while 25 percent reported that there is more interest in energy efficient buildings than two years ago, 37 percent noted that investment into energy efficient buildings was limited to niche investors. The study concludes that it still appears that other considerations take precedence in the UK for investors, and the UK is lagging behind China and Hong Kong in this area, where 41 percent reported that energy efficient buildings are increasingly seen as an attractive form of investment. The issue of responsible investment, will be being discussed on the 13 and 14 May at the RICS World Built Environment Forum, Summit in New York. More →