Office take-up slips in Edinburgh, improves in Leeds – Jones Lang LaSalle
Occupier take-up of office space in Edinburgh reached 152,000 sq ft in the third quarter, which was 12% lower than the total a year earlier, says Jones Lang LaSalle. While Q3 take-up was consistent with the previous quarter, JLL says supply levels fell in Q3 for the seventh quarter in a row.
The city centre remains sought-after, while in West Edinburgh JLL has seen a reduced level of viewing activity, leading to lower take-up. Ben Reed, director at JLL, says that some larger corporate occupiers are “actively starting to review their options”, due to the steady decline in Grade A city-centre space, and thinks this may lead to some pre-letting activity as a result. Meanwhile, some landlords and developers in West Edinburgh are lowering quoting rents in response to the lower enquiry levels, in order to offer attractive discounts in comparison with city-centre properties, he notes.
Take-up for the year to date in Edinburgh is 492,000 sq ft, which compares with 561,850 sq ft for the first nine months of 2010, JLL says.
Meanwhile, the Leeds Agents Forum has released take-up data for office space in Leeds during Q3 2011 showing that occupier activity has improved for the city centre and also for the out-of-town market. Total city-centre take-up so far this year is 311,109 sq ft, the Leeds Agents Forum says, which is already ahead of the 2010 full-year total of 283,231 sq ft. Agents report ‘promising signs’ that total city-centre take-up will be more than 400,000 by the year-end.
During the third quarter, take-up in the city centre was 115,973 sq ft, up 67% year-on-year. Office take-up in the out-of-town market was 62,970 sq ft during the quarter, which was the strongest quarter over the past 12 months and 15% higher than the Q2 total. Total year-to-date out-of-town take-up is 170,087 sq ft.
