Facebook tags 700,000 sq ft office search

Facebook is scouring central London for 500,000-700,000 sq ft of new office space, as it prepares for further growth in the capital. The social media giant is understood to have appointed Cushman & Wakefield to search for offices that could house up to 9,000 employees. Facebook is due to open a 240,000 sq ft UK headquarters at Rathbone Square, W1, next month and occupies 130,000 sq ft at British Land’s Regent’s Place, NW1. The proposed new office would be additional. It is understood to have held talks with the King’s Cross Central Partnership about occupying several of the remaining office buildings on the Argent-developed estate, N1, where more than 500,000 sq ft is still available. These talks are at an early stage and no deal has been agreed. If Facebook were to prelet 700,000 sq ft, it would double its central London footprint and be London’s second biggest tech sector deal, behind Google’s new 1m sq ft headquarters at King’s Cross. Facebook declined to comment, but speaking to EG earlier this month, Facebook head of real estate Rob Cookson said the company was looking to be involved with the spaces it occupies at the point of inception. “What we have found is that the ability to influence a scheme from the ground up is massively beneficial and we will see that happening more. This means that when you can get involved on a project early, having a good dialogue with the developer about why a certain building or spec works for us or not is crucial,” he said. “As we grow, and we are looking now at planning for 2,000-5,000 workstations in a single location, we are trying to influence that conversation as much as possible… If necessary, we will look at taking and developing buildings ourselves.” According to EG data, so far in 2017, TMT firms accounted for 23% of all take-up in central London, spanning 2m sq ft. This does not include the largest deal of this year – media group Dentsu Aegis’ 310,000 sq ft prelet of British Land’s Triton Square, NW1 – as it has not yet completed. Andy Pyle, head of UK real estate at KPMG, said the tech and media sector’s stellar growth was responsible for the recent glut of mega-deals, as occupiers scrambled to accommodate new employees. He said: “There is not an enormous amount of availability in central London: you have to look way ahead to find space. That is why these deals are coming around more quickly. “This is a counterweight to bad news around Brexit, because if some jobs are going to be moving out of London, this shows there are new kids on the block.” Facebook’s insatiable growth As of June, Facebook had 2.1bn users, and more than 800m people “like” something on the site every day. In addition, more than 1bn people use “Groups” every month. At $10.3bn, Q3 revenue was the firm’s highest three-month total, up by 47% year-on-year. Profit rose by 79% to $4.7bn. This was largely due to the more than 6m businesses that now pay to advertise with Facebook, and the average cost of an advert increased by 35% from last year. Announcing the results, Facebook said it hired 2,500 staff in Q3 and planned to add 10,000 more by the end of 2018 to support efforts to eradicate fake news and misinformation. To send feedback, e-mail nick.johnstone@egi.co.uk or tweet @n_johnstone or @estatesgazette