Searches totalling a third of the Manchester’s available grade-A office space were launched this week as occupiers at Barbirolli Square approached their lease expiries.
Addleshaw Goddard, DLA Piper, Ernst & Young and PwC are scouring the city to replace their combined 220,000 sq ft at 100 and 101 Barbirolli Square. Their leases are due to expire by 2017.
According to Lambert Smith Hampton there is currently less than 600,000 sq ft of grade-A office space available in Manchester, while Savills estimates the city faces a 140,000 sq ft shortfall in the next decade.
Addleshaw Goddard, which occupies 65,000 sq ft at Moorfield’s and Oaktree Capital Management’s , has appointed Jones Lang LaSalle to scope the city for new offices.
Ernst & Young has hired Cushman & Wakefield to assess options to replace its 51,000 sq ft, while DLA Piper, which occupies a combined 55,000 sq ft across the two buildings, has called for bids from agents.
PwC, which occupies 52,000 sq ft in 101 Barbirolli Square, is handling its own search.
DLA Piper and Addleshaw Goddard are understood to be considering Argent/GMPF’s One St Peter’s Square, where KPMG has taken space.
Other prospects for all four tenants include Ask’s First Street, Hines’ Oxford Road scheme and Allied London’s final 260,000 sq ft block at Quay House, Spinningfields.
One agent said: “Everybody is looking to see who is going to stick and who is going to twist. They are absolutely in our crosshairs.”
The Barbirolli blocks were built in the 1990s, with the four firms preletting most of one block and part of the other at rent of £20 per sq ft. Prime rents in Manchester now stand at around £30 per sq ft.
Moorfield and Oaktree bought 100 Barbarolli Square for £41m in July from SWIP. Hermes sold number 101 to SWIP in 2011 for £30m.
Chris.Berkin@estatesgazette.com
