Office Space Manchester > Serviced Offices

The competition in the office market in Manchester and Liverpool could hotten up even more with the news that there is to be a new £100 million investment in the train network between each city.  The current journey time of 54 minutes minutes will be shortened to just 30.  This will be a massive boost to the economy in the North West and will help the two cities enormously. It will make it easier for people to commute between the areas, allowing people to live and work in opposite cities and still be able to travel with greater ease, comfort and speed.

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Spinningfields, the Manchester office development continues to go from strength to strength with the news that the General Medical Council is to take a further 10,000 sq ft of office space. The extra space at 3 Hardman Street comes on top of the 50,000 sq ft they confirmed they would let earlier in the year. Steve Jones from GMC commented that the additional space would result in tangible benefits for the NHS.

Mike Ingall the CEO of the owners Allied London said that this was another shining example of how Spinningfields could attract major tenancy deals.  He said occupiers were attracted to the flexibility and the prestigious location in central Manchester.  Spinningfields seems to have been somewhat “recession proof”, and has now become THE place to rent office space in Manchester.  Now an established brand within the City, other schemes will look on with envy as they land major tenant after major tenant.

This week a major deal was confirmed in the Manchester office market.  Greater Manchester Police will take 240,000 sq ft of office space at Central Park, as reported by PropertyWeek. This comes on the back of news that Manchester city council have chosen Number One First Street as the temporary home for over 1,800 staff and that Mayfield station could be turned into the “Whitehall of the North.”

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Birmingham has traditionally been regarded as the second city outside of London, due to it’s esteemed history of industry and large population.  In fact with 992,000 inhabitants, Birmingham has almost twice as many citizens as Manchester and so would naturally claim to be the “second city” outside the capital.

However, Manchester in the last decade has grown rapidly, particularly in the service, banking, legal and financial sectors with many major UK and global corporations with either a presence or their headquarters in Manchester.  These include Bank of New York, HSBC, Ernst and Young, and Co-op to name but a few.  According to Wikipedia Manchester is… “one of the largest financial centres in Europe with more than 15,000 people employed in banking and finance and more than 60 banking institutions”  The Spinningfields development, a £1.5 million mixed used scheme and the imposing Beetham Tower, both epitomise the recent commercial success of the City.

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Commercial property agents GVA Grimley have said that Manchester, out of nine UK cities surveyed, has the worse imbalance of demand vs supply.  Staggeringly, out of nine cities surveyed, Manchester accounted for 30% of all available grade A space.  It is also argued that this will take four year to  be soaked up by occupiers, even it take up rates were at the levels they were before the recession took hold. More bad news emerged from CoStar, who have reported that total city centre office take-up fell 58 per cent to 141,824 sq ft in the first quarter of this year.

And it seems the over supply problem will be compounded by the fact that the are five speculative schemes of over 50,000 sq ft currently being built in the city centre.  No wonder some landlords and agents will be getting jittery about the prospect of getting these half finished buildings filled with tenants.  One such scheme is the Origin which is located on the corner of Princess Street and Whitworth Street.  This will comprise of over 60,000 sq ft of office space as well as encompassing a hotel and residential units. The developers West Properties stated that work was three months behind schedule but that it would have an advantage over other properties as it was a mixed use scheme.  They are also planning another scheme on Desngate but this will be completed outside the timeframe in the GVA report.