City office market will ‘carry on booming’
MANCHESTER’S pre-eminent reputation as the heart of the Northern Powerhouse continues to strengthen after another robust year for the city’s office market.
Whilst 2015 was not quite the record year as many predicted, it still performed outstandingly well with the city centre take up for 2015 finishing at 1,318,282sq ft, just a fraction below last year’s figure and 15,437sq ft below the highest take up recorded back in 2001.
This shortfall was predominantly due to a quiet final quarter which was 32% down in comparison to Q4 in 2014, according to a report by the Manchester Office Agents Forum.
A total of 311 deals were recorded in Manchester city centre with the total office take up being approximately 1% down on 2014 but showing an increase of 32.5% on the 10-year average.
Richard Dinsdale, associate director at Edwards & Co and spokesman for the MOAF, said: “The buoyant market conditions that the city is experiencing look set to continue with companies selecting Manchester as a location due to its highly skilled labour pool, strong amenity offering and exceptional public transport network.
“Subsequently, Manchester is flourishing with the supply pipeline for Grade A office accommodation spiking at the highest level recorded since 2008 with rising levels of speculative development across the city.
“The 2015 figures have been dominated by a significant amount of pre-let activity totalling 255,956sq ft which accounted for approximately 20% of the total city centre take up.”
The significant demand for prime stock within the city centre continues to substantially outweigh supply.
Six new build office buildings are soon to be delivered to the market, four of which will complete in 2016, namely XYZ (160,000 sq ft – fully let), One New Bailey (125,000 sq ft) and the two buildings at the Embankment scheme (No 100 – 166,000 sq ft and No101 – 165,000 sq ft) which total approximately 616,000 sq ft of Grade A office accommodation of which 160,000 sq ft is already pre-let.
The other two new build developments, 2 St Peter’s Square and No1 Spinningfields, are set to bolster the prime stock even further in 2017 by providing an additional 320,000 sq ft.
Formed in 2009, MOAF members include OBI Property, CBRE, Canning O’Neill, Colliers, Cushman & Wakefield, Edwards & Co, GVA, JLL, Knight Frank, LSH, Matthews & Goodman, Savills, TSG Property Consultants, WHR and BE Group.
