2011: the year of the tower? Undeniably. There are few parts of London where the Shard is not already visible, while the Heron Tower casts a real and symbolic shadow in the City.
But 2011: the year of the occupier? I heard plenty of talk of that towards the end of last year, as agents and developers hunkered down for a tough 12 months and pledged to focus on the client. Yet I see and hear less evidence of that in conversations I have today. Worryingly, occupiers still sometimes feel like an afterthought.
Let’s be generous: that may necessarily have been the case as few companies and sectors have sought to expand in recent months and years. Now let’s be optimistic: perhaps that is set to change.
This week, Aon provided a major fillip to British Land’s and Oxford Properties’ efforts to secure the first major prelet for a City of London tower (p39 and p66). The US insurance giant has picked the Cheesegrater, EC3, as its preferred option for its long-running 200,000 sq ft office requirement. The 621,000 sq ft tower was chosen over Great Portland Estates’ 100 Bishopsgate and Land Securities’ and Canary Wharf’s Walkie Talkie at 20 Fenchurch Street, both EC3.
Construction on the Cheesegrater and Walkie Talkie began speculatively earlier this year, in the hope of delivering the schemes into a market starved of new product. The Pinnacle, EC2, is another tower that will ensure London’s skyline is very different once it completes in 2012.
Aon’s decision was enough to prompt agents to talk of the prelet market being in full swing once again.
That may be going too far. But there are signs that occupational demand – from certain sectors and in certain locations, at least – is recovering.
Much of that recovery is thanks to financial services expansion. Fund manager Schroders, Société Générale and Credit Agricole are all on City landlords’ watch lists (p47). And with a 500,000 requirement of its own out there, the Bank of England is proving it’s not just its hawkish view on the direction of interest rates that will affect the property market this year.
Several companies in the technology, media and communications sector are also in the market with major requirements (p47). Advertising agency Ogilvy & Mather’s hunt for 200,000 sq ft of offices comes hot on the heels of Apple’s 180,000 sq ft requirement, Google’s 150,000 sq ft and Facebook’s 35,000 sq ft. After their virtual land grabs of recent years, these online stars are making their presence felt in the real world, too.
Hang on. Doesn’t a growing market driven by a dotcom boom and financial services expansion sound familiar? Now let’s not tempt fate
The line-up for next month’s Estates Gazette Regeneration – delivering through localism conference is complete. Staged in partnership with UK Regeneration, the event sets out how the government expects regeneration to be delivered through localism and big society.
Andrew Stunell, parliamentary under-secretary of state for the Department for Communities and Local Government, will be on hand to deliver that message, with Philip Cox, director of the CLG’s local Economies, Regeneration and European Programme, also speaking.
John McCready, head of the Government Property Unit, will talk about how existing assets can help to trigger regeneration, while Brendan Jarvis, managing director, head of real estate, EMEA at Barclays, will cover the role the private sector can play. Julian Barwick, joint managing director at Development Securities, will also be speaking.
It’s a stellar line-up on one of the hottest topics around. For more details go to www.estatesgazetteevents.com/regeneration2011
