City’s office market enjoys ‘steady’ first half of 2018

Somerset House, Birmingham

Birmingham’s office market saw a “steady” flow of deals in the first half of 2018, slightly ahead of the same period last year which ended with a record 1m sq ft-plus total.

New data on office take-up in quarter two, collated by the Birmingham Office Market Forum (BOMF), showed there were 31 deals for a total of 169,929 sq ft.

The largest deal in the quarter was the 38,162 sq ft taken by BE Group at Somerset House. Other big deals were the Environment Agency taking 26,799 sq ft at Aqua, Lionel Street, and Vax taking 21,232 sq ft at 2 Colmore Square, which is being occupied by Highways England.

The half-year total of 318,412 sq ft was nearly 70,000 sq ft ahead of 2017, although last year was then boosted by HMRC’s Arena Central deal.

A statement by BOMF said: “Given the transactions known to be currently progressing through legals together with a number of proposals advancing to decision making stages, the BOMF members remain optimistic that the outlook for 2018 shall again see a stronger second half of the year in the Birmingham office leasing market.”

The strong finish to 2017 is also helping to keep the rolling quarterly average quite high.

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