Socius and Patron Capital have secured two new office tenants at their Edward Street Quarter development in Brighton, taking the scheme to 90% let.
NatWest and professional services group Knights will occupy a total of 10,200 sq ft at the £120m mixed-use development, which comprises 125,000 sq ft of grade-A offices and 168 homes.
NatWest has taken 2,700 sq ft on a 10-year lease and plans to use the space to support its business banking services.
Knights has signed for 7,500 sq ft on 10-year lease, which it plans to make its flagship office. The firm employs more than 1,500 people, 200 of whom are located in Brighton.
Other occupiers include Octopus Energy, which agreed a 10-year lease for 82,000 sq ft across three buildings and 14 floors in March. More than 1,200 employees will be based at the site, which will be part of its regional headquarters.
M&G has bought the build-to-rent portion of the scheme, with L&G acquiring the affordable segment. The development also has for-sale homes.
Earlier this year Olaide Oboh, executive director at Socius, told EG: “mixed-use is the way to regenerate towns and cities across the UK”.
“Just providing offices, people work there, and it is great you get that economic growth. But once people go home, and at the weekend, it’s dead – and with residential-only, it’s the other way around. When you bring those uses together to create that vibrancy in a location, you bring jobs, and you also get people living there. You increase the local spend, you get council tax – all those benefits work better when you create that mix.
Barry Jessup, managing director at Socius, added: “The fact that the workspace at Edward Street Quarter is close to being fully let at completion vindicates our bold strategy to press ahead with Brighton’s largest speculative commercial development for 25 years during the uncertainty of the Covid-19 pandemic.
“Brighton is one of the UK’s fastest-growing and most vibrant cities but continues to be hindered by an acute undersupply of high-specification workspace, with just 3% of existing office stock achieving an EPC A rating.”
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