Office of the Month: Three Piccadilly Place

IT is perhaps unsurprising that one of the first office schemes to be featured in this slot is Piccadilly Place.

Its location – linked via footbridge to Piccadilly Station – means that it has occupied one of the most visible sites in the region since its completion in 2008. Moreover, as take-up of Grade A space elsewhere in Manchester city centre has meant the city’s existing stock has dwindled, Three and Four Piccadilly Place now comprises a significant chunk of what remains available.

A recent survey by the Manchester Office Agents’ Forum estimates that only around 569,000 sq ft of Grade A space is currently available in the city, and almost 200,000 sq ft of that is at Piccadilly Place.

The 675,000 sq ft mixed-use scheme was developed by Argent and contains the City Inn Hotel at One Piccadilly Place and the 55,000 sq ft headquarters for Greater Manchester’s Passenger Transport Authority at Two Piccadilly Place.

Five Piccadilly Place contains 167 apartments, while Three and Four Piccadilly Place – both of which are now owned by the Carlyle Group – contain the office-led element of the scheme.

Three Piccadilly Place has 9,300 sq ft of space on the ground floor and is currently 60% let, with occupiers including Liverpool-based law firm Weightmans, property consultancy firm EC Harris and serviced office operator Orega all taking space at the building.

Some four and-a-half of the 11 floors at Three Piccadilly Place remain available, though – as does all 110,400 sq ft of Four Piccadilly Place, which has floorplates ranging from 13,000-16,000 sq ft over seven floors, plus 10,000 sq ft of ground floor retail.

At Three Piccadilly Place, the smallest amount available is 7,598 sq ft on part of the fifth floor, whereas the largest amount on any single floor is almost 20,000 sq ft on the sixth floor. Headline rents are £25 per sq ft.

Joint letting agents for the scheme are GVA and Savills.

Chris Cheap from GVA said that the scheme offers “one of the last opportunities to occupy built product with floorplates in excess of 10,000 sq ft”.

“With no cranes appearing on the horizon, due to constraints within the funding markets, occupiers with lease events over the next five years really should be questioning whether there will be available stock within the market place when it comes time to move.

“We are in advanced discussions with several parties who have realised this already.”