Office space Birmingham city centre – quarter 4 2012 take-up
After a slow start to the year, with an uncharacteristically low level of take-up for office space in Birmingham city centre, the market made a good recovery in the second half with a number of large Birmingham office space lettings.
Most notably, these included:
- Shoosmiths – 40,036 sq ft at 2 Colmore Square/Cannon House
- HM Courts & Tribunals Service – 29,844 sq ft at Centre City
- i2 – 27,913 sq ft at 3 Brindleyplace – took over a former Regus serviced office facility
- BPP Training & Consultancy – 21,000 sq ft at 2 Colmore Square
- Mott MacDonald – 18,999 sq ft at 35 Newhall Street – see ‘KWB secures largest letting of office space in Birmingham city centre’
It is heartening to see that a number of occupiers are continuing to expand by taking significant amounts of additional office space, for example, BPP with 2 Colmore Square and Deutsche Bank at Baskerville House.
2nd half take-up on track for office space Birmingham city centre
Whilst take-up for the year as a whole is down, the second half – with quarterly take-up in quarter 3 of 171,501 sq ft and in quarter 4 of 185,401 sq ft – is in line with the long term average, when broken down on a quarterly basis.
Predictions for office space Birmingham in 2013
With the number of sizeable lease events due over the next two years, we anticipate take-up for office space in Birmingham city centre to exceed that of 2012 and, in principle, could come in above the long term average. The bigger requirements are very likely to focus on prime stock and our research highlights a potential shortfall in prime office space in less than 18 months’ time. However, the secondary market for refurbished Grade A office space remains competitive.
Birmingham Science Park, a source for future larger office space requirements
This year has seen a significant number of transactions at Birmingham Science Park in Aston, all of which are small in size and rarely exceed 1,000 sq ft. However, it highlights the fact that the incubator facility is working and we hope that these will produce larger Birmingham office space requirements in the future.
Birmingham Jewellery Quarter offices win while Edgbaston remains challenged
Birmingham Jewellery Quarter is still attractive to a number of organisations that do not necessarily need to be in the prime Birmingham city centre core. The one area that continues to struggle and suffer from net migration from it is Edgbaston, which retains office occupiers that are purely cost-driven.
See full details of the transactions for office space in Birmingham city centre and Edgbaston.
