Speculative London offices development to return in 2013–Jones Lang LaSalle
Neil Prime of Jones Lang LaSalle says speculative office activity is expected to return to the London property market in 2013, as the current development pipeline is “inadequate to meet any upturn in demand”. JLL expects around 4.3m sq ft of office space to be completed this year, with a further 1.8m in 2014 and just 188,000 sq ft so far for 2015. “Beyond this, there is nothing under construction speculatively across London,” he told The Times.
Jones Lang LaSalle expects the take-up of Central London office space to rise this year after 2012’s below-average levels. West End offices take-up reached 2.5m sq ft compared with a ten-year average of 3.2m sq ft while 3.7m sq ft of City office space was taken up, against a ten-year average of 5.1m sq ft.
Mr. Prime said that the resilient labour market, with about 500,000 new positions created nationwide during the past year – and with the strongest employment growth seen in London – was the “best news” to have emerged from the gloomy economic conditions in 2012. He believes that this job growth will start “a revival that sees London at the top of the rankings for office employment globally over the next five years”. JLL expects offices take-up this year to be boosted by a rise in M&A activity among companies that have built up large cash reserves, together with the rapidly growing demand from technology, media and telecoms companies.
