The roadmap of urban centres’ recovery from the pandemic will be multifaceted, but one of the most critical components will be enticing white-collar businesses to commit to central locations. In turn, that will enable the streets, bars, shops and restaurants to once again benefit from the daytime presence of office workers.
Last year’s leasing volumes for regional cities suggested that Leeds had suffered more on this front than others.
EG Radius figures indicated a 55% slump in city centre office leasing volumes against the five-year average, meaning that it suffered the worst downturn in take-up activity across EG’s “big six” regional cities.
Within that figure, however, lay some crumbs of comfort. Alongside stable headline rents, lease lengths ticked upwards to just over seven years on average – indicating a more positive longer-term outlook from the new occupier base on Leeds’s credentials as a business hub, despite 2020’s persistent backdrop of uncertainty.
Bristol was the only other city to see average lease terms top the seven-year mark in 2020, albeit with a year-on-year drop to 7.2 years from 7.4 in 2019.
Those positive signs have translated into early-year momentum for Leeds on the leasing front, as DLA Piper’s commitment at City Square House (pictured above) in January boosted the opening quarter’s take-up volumes above Q1 2020, making Leeds the only city within our big six to see a year-on-year uplift.
There is a long way to go, but things do seem to be moving in the right direction for Leeds when it comes to enticing white-collar businesses into the city centre. And with high-profile leisure operators also committing to the city, it appears that all the ingredients might be coming together for Leeds’s roadmap to recovery to end successfully.
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