Deals for city centre offices sees ‘considerable improvement’
The number of deals for office space in Birmingham city centre so far this year have shown cause for optimism for those worried about the impact of the working-from-home culture.
The Birmingham Office Market Forum (BOMF), which has been collating data since 2008, recorded 32 deals in the first three months of 2022.
It is the highest number of first-quarter deals since 2016, which BOMF said “reflects confident decision making by an increasing number of occupiers”.
It added: “In a quarter where office market activity was yet again hindered by the work from home ruling at the turn of the year, it is most encouraging that the Q1 take up outcome continued at a similar level to that recorded in the final quarter of 2021 and is a considerable improvement on this time last year.”
The deals were for 175,261 sq ft of space, making it the fifth-best Q1 performance in the last 15 years.
Previous years with strong Q1 take-up were often dominated by a big deal, such as BT taking 283,000 sq ft at Three Snowhill in Janaury 2020, with the rest of the market only delivering 56,000 sq ft.
The largest deal so far in 2022 has been for the Office for the Public Guardian, which took a further 27,132 sq ft at Victoria Square House, while co-working provider Cubo Work agreed a deal for 24,297 sq ft at 2 Chamberlin Square.
The two other five-figure deals in the quarter were both for 12,132 sq ft at 103 Colmore Row, with Gallaghers taking the 13th floor and Browne Jacobson the 15th.
2021 had delivered the second-lowest total in nine years, with 656,735 sq ft taken as the pandemic continued to impact companies’ willingness to commit. However there were 94 office deals in 2021, compared with just 50 in the previous year.
