M42 Corridor office market on course for record year

COMMERCIAL property experts are predicting that the M42 Corridor – the area around Solihull, the NEC and Birmingham Airport – is in line for a record year in terms of office take up.

A 20,000 sq ft letting to BT at Birmingham Business Park in Solihull by property consultancy Cushman & Wakefield has helped boost the third quarter office take up figures in the area.

BT has sub-let the space at Aquarius House from another telecoms giant, EE. EE has a lease on the grade A building until 2022, and the sub-letting will see BT take over the second floor.

Approximately 368,000 sq ft of space has now been snapped up in the corridor in the first three quarters.

Cameron Thomson, senior surveyor at property consultancy Cushman & Wakefield in Birmingham, said it is entirely possible that the locality could see around 500,000 sq ft of lettings during the year.

The BT deal was the biggest letting in the M42 corridor during the third quarter, but two major lettings have also been secured at nearby One Trinity Park, which will fall into the final quarter of the year.

These deals have seen Alpro, the Belgian-based organic and non-organic food and drink products maker, take a new lease of one of the 13,000 sq ft floors at One Trinity Park, and engineering firm RLC UK snap up another of similar size.

The 52,000 sq ft building is now fully let.

Thomson said: “There has been a resurgence in demand in the primary out-of-town market in the West Midlands this year.

“Recognising the dwindling supply of high quality office space, tenants have been busy securing the best space that has been available during the year, including One Trinity Park, and taken advantage of being able to improve their working environments as well as still achieve competitive deals in a market where there is upward pressure on rents and reducing incentive packages are very tangible.

“That trend has left very little good quality space in the out of town locations to the east of Birmingham and there is now an opportunity for developers to seriously consider commencing speculative office builds, as they have a good chance of securing a tenant.”

The M42 Corridor benefits from its proximity to the motorway network and Birmingham Airport. A new HS2 railway station is also planned for the area.