Strong Q4 for offices in Leeds
Take-up of office space in Leeds city centre reached 87,050 sq ft in the final quarter of 2011 according to the Leeds Agents Forum as reported by Jones Lang LaSalle. This figure takes the full-year total to 398,159 sq ft transacted across 106 deals. The forum says the figure for 2011 was up 40.5% on the previous year, and 9% below the five-year average for the city of 437,386 sq ft.
Only three transactions in the city centre during Q4 exceeded 5,000 sq ft, the forum noted. It said occupier activity was evident in a wide range of sectors, including recruitment, financial and media. Agents in Leeds say that 43% of Grade A stock was leased in the final quarter and add that, with new development remaining scarce, landlords are upgrading secondary stock in the city to meet occupiers’ requirements for higher-quality available office space in Leeds.
The forum forecasts that take-up of office space in Leeds will continue to increase, as occupiers absorb existing stock and with a couple of large pre-lets expected, “which could kick-start some much needed speculative space in the city core.”
Outside the city centre, Q4 take-up for the rest of Leeds reached 110,667 sq ft – more than the city core, and up 43% from the third quarter. This was also the strongest quarter for the out-of-town market for the past 15 months, the forum noted, boosted by two large freehold deals – the 32,891 sq ft sale of Rawdon House to the EMIS Group and the 17,800 sq ft purchase of Fountain Court by TP Orthodontics. For the whole of 2011, out-of-town take-up reached 280,754 sq ft, which was 11.4% higher than for the previous year.
