With sentiment in the Bristol city centre office market remaining positive, Bilfinger GVA is expecting to see a continued reversal of the trend of converting vacant office space to residential uses.
“We’re expecting 2016 to be the year of the refurbishment, prior to the completion of any major speculative new build,” says Richard Kidd, regional head of office agency at Bilfinger GVA in Bristol. “During 2015 there were a number of landlords who would otherwise have sold vacant buildings for residential who decided to hold and undertake office refurbishments to bring to the market during 2016.
“There are a number exciting refurbishment schemes due to hit the market this year including 31 Great George Street where Hermes are on site with a high quality refurbishment of 54,000 sq ft of which 20,000 sq ft is already under offer or committed. At 1 Brunswick Square (formerly Capital House) Threadneedle are underway with a 50,000 sq ft high quality refurbishment aimed at the rapidly expanding TMT sector.”
The buoyant office market in Bristol is reflected in Bilfinger GVA’s new The Big Nine report, which reveals how in Q4 2015 occupier take-up figures in the UK’s major regional city centres, including Bristol, came in at 1.67 million sq ft, 38% above the five year average.
According to the quarterly report, which analyses regional city-centre and out-of-town office activity, strong take-up figures during the final quarter of the year across the ‘big nine’ cities, took total activity for 2015 to 9.6 million sq ft, 20% above the five year average.
The report reveals how this presents the fourth consecutive annual increase in take-up.
The Bristol city centre market in 2015 saw take-up reach 490,769 sq ft, only slightly below the five-year average of 526,940 sq ft.
Richard continues, “Other schemes hitting the market this year will include Orchard Court where Schroders Investment Management will provide 30,000 sq ft of high quality space and AEW’s Freshford House which will provide a further 30,000 sq ft.
“EDF Energy are now on site fitting out 80,000 sq ft in Bridgewater House, Finzels Reach which will complete in January 2016 which will help boost the take-up figures for the first quarter of 2016. Also on Finzels Reach, developer Cubex Land have committed to a speculative development of Aurora which will provide 95,000 sq ft of new grade A space to the market in quarter three 2017.”
Out-of-town Bristol saw take-up in Q4 of 94,708 sq ft, significantly up on the five year quarterly average of 73,638 sq ft, demonstrating strong occupier demand levels. The 36,000 sq ft letting to ALD Automotive at Vertex Park was one of the largest Q4 deals amongst the nine regional centres featured in the Big Nine report.