The West End wins big property deals as London office space take-up soars

Take-up of office space in central London surpassed a 10-year average in the third quarter this year.

Central London take-up was 3.4m sq ft, marking a quarterly increase of three per cent, and beating a 10-year average of 3.1m sq ft, according to the latest figures from global real estate advisor CBRE.

The largest deal of the quarter was a 549,800 sq ft pre-let at 21 Moorfields, a proposed development connected to the new Crossrail station. The largest space under offer was a part of The Stage development in Shoreditch.

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But the West End was the biggest winner, with three of the deals for spaces over 100,000 sq ft taking place in the area. The largest of these was a move by Dentsu Aegis which pre-let 311,800 sq ft at 1 Triton Square.

Emma Crawford, managing director of London leasing at CBRE commented: “The resilience of the Central London market shows no sign of abating as appetite for prime office space continues to see strong demand, particularly amongst the banking and finance, business services and creative industry sectors which accounted for the highest percentage

of third quarter take-up.”

Overall take-up of office space so far this year was eight per cent higher than the same period in 2016.

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