Online car hire firm Traveljigsaw is on the verge of signing the largest office deal in Manchester city centre this year.
It is to take 60,000 sq ft at Sunlight House on Quay Street, owned by the Apia Regional Office Fund, jointly managed by Aviva Investors and Warner Estate. It will move from 29,000 sq ft at St George’s House on Peter Street.
Headline rents at Sunlight House are around £19 per sq ft, although sources suggest a deal could be done at around £15. It is expected to sign a 10-year lease.
Traveljigsaw will occupy 50,000 sq ft across the top four floors of the 200,000 sq ft building, taking space lower down the building as the firm expands.
The deal will be a fillip for the city, where the local office of DTZ this week downgraded its predicted take-up figures for the full year from 850,000 sq ft to 650,000 sq ft.
The reduction is the result of a belief that several major requirements are unlikely to progress in 2012. They include BUPA’s long-running search for 160,000 sq ft and engineering firm Jacobs’s 80,000 sq ft office hunt.
Apia is being advised by OBI; DTZ and Canning O’Neill are also agents on the building; Traveljigsaw is unrepresented.
simon.binns@estatesgazette.com
