Booming Birmingham’s office market has beaten the Brexit doom-mongers in the first quarter of 2019 with two major deals boosting the figures, according to national commercial property consultancy Lambert Smith Hampton (LSH).
In the company’s Birmingham Office Market Pulse Q1 2019 report, Alex Tross, head of office advisory at LSH in Birmingham, said the second city also has some very large office deals in the pipeline this year.
He said: “With continued political and economic uncertainty, it was going to be interesting to see how the Birmingham office market responded in 2019. It’s fair to say that the response in Q1 has been emphatically positive.
“Total take up for the quarter was 194,000 sq ft, which was 31% ahead of the same quarter last year. Not only did Q1 2019 outperform Q1 2018, it delivered the second highest take-up figure for that quarter since records began.
“In fact, it was only beaten by an anomalous Q1 2016 which yielded a whopping 284,000 sq ft. Major deals for the quarter were 72,000 sq ft let to the Commonwealth Games organising committee at 1 Brindleyplace, and 46,000 sq ft let to law firm Irwin Mitchell at The Colmore Building.
“There were 25 deals done, which is the second lowest Q1 total since 2009 and, whilst this might typically be a cause for concern in terms of being a barometer for the full year performance, there are some very large lettings in the pipeline.”
Alex added: “Both BT and We Work have live requirements of around 200,000 sq ft each, so the 2019 total should be in line with the long term average at the very least.”