Birmingham lagging behind rivals in office market take-up terms

BIRMINGHAM’S city centre office market is underperforming compared to many of its provincial rivals.

Comparative data produced by property consultancy GVA shows that not only traditional rival Manchester but also Glasgow, Edinburgh, Leeds and Bristol are outperforming the Second City when it comes to occupier take-up figures.

What will be of concern to the local property sector is that a number of these cities are now outperforming their five year quarterly take-up average whereas the 102,353 sq ft take-up figure achieved in the central Birmingham office market in quarter one of this year is well below the city’s five year quarterly average figure of 158,427 sq ft.

And the gap between Birmingham and Manchester appears to be widening. In Q1 Manchester’s central office take-up was 250,000 sq ft, 16,000 sq ft above its five year quarterly average and 150% above Birmingham’s take-up figure.

The size of the deals achieved in Manchester in Q1 also contrasted sharply with what was achieved in Birmingham.

Barclays took 80,000 sq ft at 4 Piccadilly Place while Trader Media Group took 60,000 sq ft deal at No 1 First Street.

The largest deals achieved in Birmingham during the same period were the 14,682 sq ft taken by law firm Weightmans at St Philips Point and the 12,138 sq ft taken by Healthcare Europe at 19 George Road, Edgbaston.

However GVA – which compared and contrasted the major regional office markets in its report The Big Nine – points out that deals accounting for almost 145,000 sq ft of office space were completed in Birmingham across the first quarter, when one looks beyond the confines of the city centre.

And it suggests there are reasons to be optimistic about the city centre market.

There are a number of active enquiries in the market and planning consent has been granted on three high profile schemes: West Register’s 190,000 sq ft at 2 Cornwall Street,  M&G and Sterling’s 240,000 sq ft Lumina scheme on Snow Hill Queensway and Goodman’s 125,000 sq ft first phase at Eastside Locks, it points out.
 
George Jennings, an associate at GVA, said: “Birmingham remains an exceedingly attractive prospect for corporate occupiers, with a number of significant enquiries either currently active or forthcoming in the market.

“While the completion of these deals will absorb a good proportion of the remaining Grade A office supply, the city has a strong pipeline of schemes that have received planning consent, boosting available stock in the years to come.
 
“It is a very positive sign that the three schemes with consent are distributed across the city, ensuring that areas outside the traditional core, such as Eastside, are being utilised to their full potential to meet Birmingham’s growing requirement and profile as a leading destination city.”