Good morning. Here’s your daily round-up of the latest news and views from EG and a collection of industry-relevant headlines from the nationals, all perfectly curated to set you up for the week ahead.
Birmingham City Council and Lendlease’s plans for the £1.9bn Smithfield development have been recommended for approval to the council.
The joint venture’s new plans for the 42-acre site include 3,000 homes – build-to-rent, for-sale and affordable – and 1.7m sq ft of commercial space.
Lendlease was chosen as the development partner for the site in 2018, and initial plans for the site were submitted in January 2023. The plans have been revamped twice since, with the first revised scheme submitted in October 2023 and the second in January this year.
The plans are set to be determined on 16 May.
In the increasingly active world of flex, former GPE director of workplace services David O’Sullivan has landed a new gig at the Crown Estate.
O’Sullivan is joining the Crown as director of transformation property services, covering commercial and retail assets, a newly created role. He left GPE in February.
Office landlords across the major regional cities have reasons to be cheerful this morning as BNP Paribas Real Estate reports the biggest uplift in rents for more than two decades.
According to the firm’s Big Ten Regional Office report – which analyses leasing and investment activity in Birmingham, Bristol, Cardiff, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester, Newcastle and Sheffield – prime rents grew by 7.6% year-on-year from Q1 2023 to Q1 2024 on average.
Josh Arnold, senior research analyst at BNP PRE, said: “Limited supply of new grade-A office space in the regional markets continues to restrict opportunities for prospective occupiers, and this is placing upward pressure on prime rents.”
Take-up across the 10 major cities tracked by the agent reached 1.14m sq ft in Q1 2024, up by 9.2% on the same period in 2023, while grade-A vacancy rates were just 2.3%. And of the 5.5m sq ft of office space currently under development or renovation, some 38% has already been prelet.
Elsewhere, PGIM has shown its confidence in the purpose-built student accommodation sector, splashing £184m on six properties from Unite. The firm plans to refurbish the almost 3,000-bed portfolio to create a best-in-class experience for students.
“In the current market environment, it is rare to find a stabilised portfolio with high-quality yielding assets located in key regional cities,” said Tobias Waldschmidt, senior portfolio manager of European core-plus strategy at PGIM Real Estate. “We believe the UK PBSA sector has strong underlying fundamentals as demand for student housing is only set to increase with more students applying for university.”
Demand for beds of any type has led to Barratt and Asda teaming up to transform the supermarket giant’s current store in Park Royal, west London, into a major mixed-use scheme. Subject to planning, the pair will create a joint venture in which Asda gets a new 60,000 sq ft superstore and Barratt delivers 1,500 new homes.
The deal would be one of the largest land deals to complete in London since 2019.
“This transaction is a sign that there is still land to be unlocked in the capital,” said Craig Carson, managing director of Barratt West London. “The redevelopment of Park Royal will have a huge impact on the area, with the new town centre unlocking new commercial opportunities for local businesses and providing a new hub for the local community.”
And finally, EG’s annual search for a special individual working in the built environment to join our award-winning Future Leaders programme has begun.
We’re on the hunt for at least one person to become a “wildcard” entrant to this year’s new and enhanced programme.
The EG Future Leaders project, now building its seventh cohort, seeks to bring together people from under-represented groups across the real estate sector to showcase the talent, diversity, inclusion and prospects for the industry in an educational, entertaining and always emotionally uplifting way.
It is a programme that EG is incredibly proud of and a project, that with the amazing support of our partners – which this year include Clyde & Co, CBRE, Knight Frank and Nuveen – enables us to offer at least one slot on this intensive public speaking training programme to someone who would never ordinarily be given such an invaluable opportunity.
Could that person be you?
If so, click here to find out more and apply.
All of the news from EG, plus a selection of headlines from the nationals:
Barratt teams up with Asda for 1,500-home Park Royal project
Rent collection at highest level since 2019
PGIM grabs student properties from Unite in £184m deal
Lendlease’s £1.9bn Smithfield plans tipped for approval
Have you got what is takes to join the EG Future Leaders?
UK regional prime office rents record largest climb in two decades
GPE’s ex-workspace services director joins Crown Estate
Cain pumps £33m into Crewe industrial
May auction raises £48m for Savills
Dundee gets £20m to ‘turbo-charge regeneration’
Class act as school sites sells for £1.3m in bidding war
Cheltenham parade leads Acuitus sale
Business parks deserted as hybrid workers opt for city centres (£)
Birmingham council leader defends chosen route out of bankruptcy (£)
Pizza Pilgrims is spreading the word in Scotland and Wales (£)
Ultra-long mortgages ‘threaten retirement crisis’ (£)
Takeover interest in UK companies hits highest since 2018 (£)
Scottish port redevelopment gets underway after £100m credit injection (£)
China fires starting gun on $140bn debt sale to boost economy (£)Council changed rules to allow investment in ‘junk bond’ fund (£)
Ireland’s economy is riding high. Is the boom built to last? (£)
Canary Wharf ponders overhaul of HSBC tower with hotel and flats (£)
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