Could it be that Bank Street, E14 is bust? Docklands delivered the strongest performance of any central London market in Q1, up tenfold on Q1 2013, but take-up from the financial sector plummeted to its lowest levels for a decade
Lettings at Canary Wharf helped the market burst through the 450,000 sq ft mark in Q1, almost 10 times the same quarter last year, and within 120,000 sq ft or 20% of all deals signed in the whole of last year, according to Estates Gazette’s London Office Market Analysis (p67-76).
Take-up has not been this high since Q1 2010, when Barclays took 301,000 sq ft at Cabot Square. Prior to this, the market had not been this good since before the collapse of Lehman Brothers. This is against falling take-up across the whole of London, down by a fifth in Q1 2014, compared with the previous quarter. But finance is no longer a dominant force in Docklands.
Its share of deals collapsed from more than a third in Docklands at the end of last year to just 3% this quarter, a figure that will be dented further by the FCA’s decision to leave Docklands for Stratford, E16. This is despite financial services signing a fifth of all London deals and registering the second highest performance of any sector – behind TMT.
Financial firms headed west towards the City and West End, which saw their share of finance deals grow to 36% and 23% respectively.
This quarter it was the professional services doing the business in Docklands, with EY signing for 205,000 sq ft at Churchill Place, the largest deal not just in E14 this quarter, but in London overall.
In total, professional services accounted for almost half of all lettings.
Find out more about the London office market by watching EG’s LOMA briefing at www.estatesgazette.com/videos
nadia.elghamry@estatesgazette.com
