1,000 staff to move to Baskerville House
BIRMINGHAM’S second-biggest office deal in the last 12 months has been completed after Network Rail chose to consolidate its three Birmingham offices into one location.
The rail operator will move 1,000 staff into 83,400 sq ft over three floors at Baskerville House in the city centre.
Baskerville House is next to the Library of Birmingham in Centenary Square, opposite the site of Arena Central, where HSBC committed to take 212,000 sq ft last April.
The building was bought by Hermes for £40m in 2013 and its tenants now include Marketing Birmingham and Kaplan Financial.
Network Rail is consolidating three business units from different offices in the city centre as it looks to increase efficiencies. A moving-in date it still to be confirmed for when its staff will take the first, second and fourth floors of Baskerville House.
Jonathan Carmalt, director of office agency JLL, which led the search, said: “The timing was right for Network Rail to make the move and reassess its property needs as several leases came to a close. This did make for fairly complex negotiations to ensure the smooth exit out of three office buildings.”
The deal maintains Birmingham’s office market’s strong start to 2016, which has already seen PwC commit to 90,000 sq ft in the Paradise development, Pinsent Masons sign up to 40,500 sq ft at 55 Colmore Row, and DAC Beachcroft take 40,000 at Tricom House, Edgbaston.
Analysis by the Birmingham Office Market Forum (BOMF) published earlier this week showed that 283,697 sq ft was taken up in the first three months of 2016, compared to 123,760 sq ft a year earlier. It eclipsed the previous first-quarter high, which was 183,348 sq ft achieved in 2010.
