London’s international investment does not only take the form of funding of construction or the purchase of skyscrapers by Middle Eastern or Asian wealth funds. The capital also continues to see new offices opening as companies based elsewhere in the world expand into the UK market by way of a bricks-and-mortar office or in order to boost their UK presence by increasing their office space. 

The strike between Monday and Wednesday of this week showed how quickly parts of the capital could be thrown into chaos and yet many of the city’s commuters responded by a determination to approach their day as normal and face the inconvenience and queues. The strikes by London Underground workers/members of the RMT Union were in response to the threat to close the Underground’s ticket officers and the resulting potential loss of 960 jobs.

Providing a stimulating yet relaxing workplace can be one of the best ways for an employer to retain their staff, and this has been recognised by a recent awards ceremony by the British Council. The London winners will go forward to the British Council’s ‘Best of the Best’ awards. The regional categories include Midlands and East Anglia, Scotland, London and South East and North of England/North Wales/Northern Ireland. 

Morgan Pryce have just completed on 3,000 sq. ft. office in Southwark on behalf of an architecture firm. Morgan Pryce managed to negotiate £1.50 psf off the rent along with 7 months’ rent free and a large capital contribution to refurbish the floor into Grade A spec. This deal represents two very interesting points, one of the current market and secondly of the importance of being represented. 

The UK arm of Sweden’s largest construction company, Skanska, has been awarded a construction project by the developer Helical Bar in respect of Creechurch Place in London, the site previously being called One Mitre Square. The agreement will see the commercial development worth £87 million to the Scandinavian company. Helical Bar intends to use the building, when completed, as its London headquarters. 

The Seattle-based coffee giant Starbucks has announced this week that it intends to move the majority of its operations from the Netherlands to the UK, where it currently has 800 stores and 7,500 employees.  The company, along with other multinationals, such as Amazon and Google, has been criticised both in public and the media, and via parliament for the discrepancy between its UK profits and its levels of corporation tax paid here over recent years. 

In 2014, there has been a large pick up in the regional office market. The top five or so regional cities have seen a very strong pick up in leasing activity of around 30% last year. Vacancy rates are low and the development pipeline is very limited at 0.8% of stock so real opportunities for speculative development in the regional cities. 

Developers taking advantage of loosened planning regulations from the introduction of permitted Development rights for the change of use of commercial office space to residential use has been high over the past year. It is no secret that when there is a permitted development right, the full use of it will be taken, and is even being said that they are now being used to set a precedent.

It was announced this week that Google had finally signed up to take the remaining 165,000 sq. ft. of space in 6 St Pancras square in Kings Cross. The scheme was a forward purchase from BNP Paribas in 2012 with part speculative and part pre-let development in planning. The transaction represented one of the highest office purchases of the year and more importantly saw Axa Real Estate develop a part speculative scheme, their first speculative scheme since the recession.

A day in the life of a Morgan Pryce assistant surveyor (otherwise known as a student on work experience) is busier than one might assume. Learning as much as you can about the property market and the industry in one week is all too familiar to cramming for exams, which most students have become accustomed to every year.