London’s reputation as a top financial hub has been rocked by speculation that JP Morgan wants to halt plans to move there.
Reports from the media have suggested that the US Bank is thinking of also leaving its offices in Glasgow and Bournemouth.
DeskCentre, the office and education furniture supplier has announced that it has moved into offices in Wirral on Merseyside. The firm was originally based in Birkenhead and will now relocate to Stadium Court situated in Bromborough. The lease signed will give them 10,000 square feet of office space as well as warehouse space.
Insolvency was seen as the previous fate for DeskCentre as they entered administration last year. Thankfully, this wasn’t the case and Vision Support Services saved them from it. The terms were that the company would still be in operation and meant that all staff kept their jobs.
The latest tenant to sign up to the Callaghan Square office scheme based in Cardiff was announced earlier this week. It is Hays, who are known as a global recruitment company.
The firm has taken 7,500 square feet of office space at 5 Callaghan Square from MEPC. They were represented by both Savills and Knight Frank who were appointed to find new tenants.
The city centre of Manchester looks like it will have a better year than expected as the lets being taken up in the area increase and the predictions of 809,000 square feet for the annual total will be exceeded.
The Co-operative group are thought to be leading way, especially after they started construction on a bespoke headquarters that will be solely responsible for 325,000 square feet of office space on Miller Street. It is expected that the cost to develop it will be £100 million and is seen as one of the most sustainable in Europe and will provide open plan office space as well as much needed regeneration to the area.
A Cardiff-based office provider called The Maltings have revealed plans to invest £2m into developing a Grade II-listed building into 17,000 square feet of office space.
The location of the building is East Tyndall Street in Splott, Wales and it is expected to feature facilities such as hot-desking, communal boardrooms and video conferencing rooms. The refurbishment has been completed to a high standard and is being currently leased to 15 businesses who are occupying around 25,000 square feet currently.
The flexible nature of the leases that are offered on the serviced offices is of great benefit to most tenants but especially to start-ups and also SME’s. It gives them the chance to grow when it is suitable and allows them to re-negotiate their terms when the business is not doing so well.
Managing director of The Maltings, Kathy Fox added her comments, “Despite a difficult year, interest in our office space has remained strong and we have fortunately been able to weather the economic storm and keep our occupancy levels high.
Our new development will continue to meet the needs of this sector by providing a mixture of serviced and self-managed office and flexible rental arrangements to meet long or short-stay requirements.”
An influx of foreign money into London means that their are a slew of investors taking advantage of the weak pound and according to IPD data there has been a growth in property values that has started to decline for the first time in three years.
This means we could see a drop in property value for the first time since the economic downturn came along in 2007.
A turnaround in the office space market was seen last year when Nomura moved from their original office to new headquarters in London beside Cannon Street station.
The recession had hit the city hard and it was one of the biggest deals coming out of it and consequently one of the biggest in London to date.
Gerald Ronson has announced that he has signed up McDermott Will & Emery for a lease that will see them occupy over 25,000 square feet of office space over two floors at Heron Tower.
Heron Tower is yet to be completed but it is going to be 46 storeys high and is already a recognisable building within London. It has a public restaurant on the top floor and will have 440,000 square feet of office space. Work on the Heron Tower is expected to be completed by the summer of 2011.
Glasgow has experienced a rise in enquiries that has recently seen record lows in the beginning of 2009, it is shown in a report that was published earlier in the week that low rents in top end buildings are finally being taken advantage of.
Glasgow city centre has seen office take up more than double in the second quarter of 2010, which is against the previous quarters figures of 185,066 of square feet. These figures are thanks to property giant Jones Lang LaSalle, for the first half of 2010 increased total take up by over 100 percent against the figures from 2009.