Developers should allow occupiers to play a greater role in the design of offices, Deutsche Bank’s managing director for corporate services has said.
“We don’t want a landlord-tenant relationship, we want a partnership,” Kathryn Harrison told an audience at EG’s London Question Time last night.
Deutsche Bank recently committed to a new London base at Landsec’s 21 Moorfields, EC2, where it has agreed terms to prelet the circa 500,000 sq ft scheme on a 25-year lease.
“Developers build obviously for a yield and they have a product in mind; and I think often the occupier almost has to remodel the building to make it fit for them because every occupier has a different kind of requirement,” Harrison said.
She said other areas where developers could improve was being “better at data speeds” and allowing for “more flexibility about the providers of telecoms and data”.
Getting developers to think about the journey of the workforce and clients as they move around the building was also a priority.
Real estate was now a feature of boardroom discussions, she said, adding: “That wasn’t the case 10 years ago.”
Asked why the bank felt confident enough to commit to a 500,000 sq ft City of London office despite the uncertainty around financial services after Brexit, she said: “We made that commitment because we think we’ve got a reasonably stable revenue stream.
“Of course there’s going to be changes out of the back end of Brexit but I think we’ve chosen a path to remain very calm and thoughtful and considered.
“We said very openly that we believe London to be a major financial centre inside of Brexit and outside of Brexit.
“What that looks like, who knows? And we’ve openly said we don’t know, and our board has talked about the fact we need to be a participant, an observer, a contributor to that process to try and help ensure that business and the banking sector and all of the services that support that do well.”
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