Office take-up in Leeds, Yorkshire, is estimated to reach up to 600,000 sq ft in the city centre this year – a 25% increase on the five-year average – according to the Leeds Office Agents’ Forum.
Occupier take-up in the city centre reached 112,103 sq ft, across 36 deals, during the third quarter. The figure brought the total take-up this year to 412,918 sq ft.
The Forum predicted between 575,000 and 600,000 sq ft of office take-up in the city centre by the end of 2015. This compared with 545,006 sq ft in 2014.
In the out-of-town market, the third quarter saw an office take-up of 72,314 sq ft with 21 deals, compared with just over 35,305 sq ft during the same period last year.
So far this year, a total of 169,551 sq ft was transacted in the out-of-town market. Total out-of-town activity across 2014 reached 236,719 sq ft.
Matthew Tootell of Bilfinger GVA said: “What is encouraging about this quarter is the overall level of activity. In all we saw 57 deals completed.
“In comparison with the rest of 2015, we’ve seen no larger-sized city centre ‘trophy’ deals or prelets – just a healthy number of ‘bread-and-butter’ transactions across the 5,000 to 10,000 sq ft size bracket.”
The largest city centre office transactions were the Church of England’s acquisition of 17-19 York Place and the letting of 8,718 sq ft at 1 Trevelyan Square on Boar Lane to the Secretary of State for Health.
In the out-of-town market, the letting to Reed Elsevier of 12,306 sq ft at City West (Building 3) was the largest deal to complete in the third quarter.
Richard Fraser of Carter Towler said: “We have seen the highest level of out-of-town take-up in quarter three. This was a very much a case of quality over quantity as four of these transactions were for more than 10,000 sq ft, which bodes well for the state of the market in the longer term.
“The ongoing supply issue regarding good-quality space has been well documented. This scarcity means headline office rents continue to creep upwards and, with the new builds and refurbishments coming through, are pushing city centre quoting rents towards £30 per sq ft.”
