Transacting the biggest deal in the 12 months to September catapulted Alder King to the top spot in the Bristol agents league table.
The deal in question was the 107,000 sq ft prelet at 3 Glass Wharf to HMRC, which contributed to the firm transacting 32% of all office space disposed in the city.
Second-placed GVA and fourth-placed JLL were bolstered by the £11.75m sale of St Augustine’s Courtyard, a 31,785 sq ft refurbished office, to the University of Bristol, which will occupy the building.
The university has been an active occupier in the past year, also taking space at 31 Great George Street and 1-5 Whiteladies Road.
Burston Cook is the only other regional agent making it into the top 10, slipping into ninth place.
The total space transacted over the 12-month period was 1.04m sq ft.
OTHER KEY DEALS
• 35,117 sq ft let at 31 Great George Street to University of Bristol by JLL & GVA
• 32,208 sq ft let at 100 Bristol Business Park to Babcock by Lambert Smith Hampton
• 27,125 sq ft sale at 40 Berkeley Square to Whiteoaks Capital by LSH (Whiteoak will occupy 75% of the space)
Click here to see more data on Bristol office take-up and investment.
Electronics sector still dominates take-up
The electronics industry was the most dominant business sector in Bristol office take-up over the 12 months to September, representing 12% of all space disposed in the city.
Despite falling from 18.5% of take-up year-on-year, the activity was sustained by lettings such as those to marketing software company Alterian PLC and IPU systems firm Graphcore.
With the universities of Bristol, Bath and the West of England providing skilled graduates and high-tech business incubator Setsquared attracting tech start-ups to the city, Bristol and Bath is the largest tech cluster in the UK outside of London.
Lettings to central and local government pushed take-up from 1.5% to 10.9% year-on-year, due in large part to the 107,000 sq ft letting to HMRC at Temple Quay.
The deal is part of HMRC’s plan to save £100m by 2025 by establish 13 regional hubs cross the country and the GPU’s overall push reduce the cost of the government estate.
With the GPU searching for a further 250,000 sq ft in Bristol for the Department of Work and Pensions, it looks like the public sector will continue to feature prominently in the city’s take-up figures.
Other sectors which have performed well include industry and manufacturing, increasing transactional volumes to 109,000 sq ft and 10% of overall take-up. Analysis also shows that the financial sectors share of take-up has shrunk from 13.4% in 2014 to 4.8% in the year to September.
