Great Portland Estates (GPE) has confirmed that it has let 51,350 sq ft of offices and shops at its recently completed Met Building, W1 to media services group Zenith Optimedia.
The Publicis SA subsidiary will pay £2,020,000 pa equating to an average office rent of £41.90 per sq ft, on five separate leases for a period of 15 years with an option to break at the 10th year.
The group will receive an initial rent-free period of at least 13 months, and a cash contribution towards fitting out costs of £1.5m.
The 111,000 sq ft building on Percy Street is now 92% let by rental value at rents of between £41.50 and £55.00 per sq ft.
Other tenants include Natwest Bank, HSBC, Gardiner & Theobald, SwitchCo and GML International and only two tower floors totalling 9,050 sq ft are still being marketed to let.
GPE bought the property with the neighbouring 28 Percy Street in June 2003 for £16m and secured planning consent for the building’s redevelopment in August 2003. 28 Percy Street was sold earlier this year for £1.4m.
Toby Courtauld, chief executive of GPE, said: “This letting secures a prestigious tenant for this quality West End development and we are delighted to welcome Zenith to the building.
“Met Building is the first of 10 major refurbishment and development schemes that GPE will be delivering into the under supplied West End and South Bank markets over the next three years and, like Met Building, all of our projects are designed to provide good quality, flexible space at competitive rents.”
References: EGi News 13/12/05
