Despite the fact that August is traditionally supposed to be a quiet period for the commercial property market, Richard Saunders & Partners say that the amount of City space taken off the market during the month was substantially up on July.
RS&P’s City Floorspace Survey for August shows that 677,181 sq ft was taken off the market in the City during the month, an increase of more than 76% over the six-monthly average. The bulk of this space was made up of the 410,000-sq ft seventh phase of Broadgate, EC2, which James Capel are rumoured to be taking.
Other buildings taken off the market included Capel House, New Broad Street, EC2, developed by Haslemere Estates and rumoured to be under offer to Tullett & Tokyo Forex International.
Availability in the City within the next 12 months has increased to over 2m sq ft for the first time in 19 months.
In the City fringes — which, according to RS&P’s definition, includes the parts of Broadgate which are in the London Borough of Hackney and not within the City Corporation’s boundaries — 793,084 sq ft was taken off the market. This included the 185,000-sq ft fifth phase of Broadgate which is thought to have gone under offer to Bankers Trust, and the 154,500-sq ft Horseshoe Court, Bankside, SE1, which was sold to Pearsons, owners of the Financial Times, for £74.4m.
Available space in the fringes fell slightly to 2,759,198 sq ft, which is slightly above the RS&P six-monthly average.
