London office lettings on the rise
London office lettings are on the rise, but are still 1m sq ft south of pre-pandemic levels.
Cushman & Wakefield found that 1.8m sq ft of office space was let in the three months to the end of June — a 39% increase on the previous quarter and the highest volume since the first lockdown.
The biggest deal was agreed by JLL for its new UK HQ, spanning 157,000 sq ft at British Land’s Broadgate campus.
London office lettings are on the rise, but are still 1m sq ft south of pre-pandemic levels.
Cushman & Wakefield found that 1.8m sq ft of office space was let in the three months to the end of June — a 39% increase on the previous quarter and the highest volume since the first lockdown.
The biggest deal was agreed by JLL for its new UK HQ, spanning 157,000 sq ft at British Land’s Broadgate campus.
Office leasing deals in central London reached a record quarterly low of 570,000 sq ft at the end of last year. But the recovery is not complete. The 1.8m sq ft of lettings agreed in the second quarter of this year compares with 3.1m sq ft for Q2 2019.
Landlords have also been offering rent-free periods to secure tenants during the pandemic. Research published last week by Carter Jonas found that while headline rents for prime office space had only fallen by about 1% in the past year, net effective rents, which include rent-free periods, had dropped by an average of 8% in 2020, based on five-year leases.
Other big deals included the relocation of IBM from its existing South Bank headquarters to nearby offices, and subletting 135,000 sq ft from energy giant Shell. Life sciences firm Synlab signed a lease for almost 100,000 sq ft on the South Bank.
The Times (£)
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Image by AHMM/British Land
