Record year as city office market beats magic million
Birmingham’s office market enjoyed a record-breaking 2017 after a remarkable final four months resulted in the 1m sq ft total being broken for the first time.
Major deals in the period included Regus taking all 76,000 sq ft of The Crossway plus 33,000 sq ft in the Lewis Building, PwC extending its pre-let of One Chamberlain Square by 59,000 sq ft, and RICS taking 31,000 sq ft in 55 Colmore Row.
Birmingham office market takeup 2014-17, by quarter
The big deals drove the fourth-quarter figure to a decade-high of 354,530 sq ft. Added to HMRC’s 240,000 sq ft deal for 3 Arena Central in late September, it meant 52 deals totalling more than 600,000 sq ft were agreed in just 14 weeks.
It pushed the annual total up to 1,005,076 sq ft, surpassing the HSBC-boosted 970,000 sq ft achieved in 2015.
The Birmingham Office Market Forum (BOMF), which has monitored the city’s market since 2007, said: “Office take up was boosted by the emergence of HS2-related demand together with the Government committing to the largest prelet seen in the city for a decade.
“In addition, key larger transactions were concluded in the professional services and the serviced office sectors.
“Breaking 1m sq ft office take up for the first time is extremely positive for Birmingham during the current period of unprecedented development activity and further regeneration, visible across the BOMF area.
“It is also particularly encouraging bearing in mind the slow first half of the year following on from the dip seen in the previous year’s total.”
The first eight months of the year had seen just one deal in excess of 20,000 sq ft – Arcadis’s 23,000 sq ft in Cornwall Street, agreed in March – which followed on from the final eight months of 2016 when again only one 20,000-plus deal was done.
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