• Swindon & Wiltshire Property
• Tuesday April 19 2022
• Author Name: Peter Davison

Bristol office market starts the year with a bang

The Bristol office market has seen very strong take-up in both the city centre and out of town markets, according to the Bristol Office Agents Society, with the city centre experiencing its highest Q1 take-up on record, and new headline rents being set.

In addition, the out of town market has seen improved occupier confidence and its highest Q1 take-up since 2014.

The city centre was expected to have a strong start to the year when several deals slipped through from 2021, but this record take-up sets a very positive outlook for the rest of 2022.

There was a total of 30 deals cross the line in this period with an average deal size of 7,809sq ft which is higher than the 5 and 10-year average.

Not only has there been a continued high number of deals but this quarter has seen seven deals in excess of 15,000sq ft cross the line to boost take-up.

The largest of these was another successful pre-let of 54,767sq ft at CEG’s EQ to Paymentsense. Other large deals include Deloitte’s pre-let of 22,500sq ft at Cubex’s sustainable building Halo, DeskLodge’s new 17,265sq ft business centre at AEW’s Beacon Tower, the letting of 16,500sq ft at The Core to EPIC, and Clarke Willmott agreeing a pre-let of the top floors at AXA / Bell Hammer’s Building C Assembly totalling 15,624sq ft.

Headline rents for the city centre have also reached a new record with lettings breaking through the £40 per sq ft barrier for the first time. The headline now sits at £42.50 per sq ft.

The Bristol out of town office market has also seen a strong start to the year with its highest Q1 take-up since 2014. A total of 16 deals were signed in Q1 to give a take-up of 102,133sq ft, the largest of these was Lysander Law’s move to 19,333sq ft of 1st floor space at 740 Aztec West.

This take-up is much improved on the last two years quarterly breakdowns, and is almost half of the take up for the whole of 2021. The out of town market was hit hard by the COVID pandemic but this improved occupier confidence gives promise for stronger demand moving forward.

Steve Lane, partner of office leasing at Cushman & Wakefield said: “This was a fantastic record-breaking start to the year.

“As restrictions are lifted occupancy levels continue to improve. We have seen businesses being drawn to high-quality buildings with strong ESG credentials – reflected in the fact that almost half of the city center activity was in Grade A schemes.

“These figures put pressure on the vacancy rate and as demand continues to improve there will be a sustained emphasis for the market to deliver the high-quality space that occupiers require”.

Ian Wills, director in office agency for JLL in Bristol – which brokered half the office deals in Q1 in Bristol city centre in terms of sq footage. – said: “For the second consecutive quarter the Bristol city centre office market has recorded above-average performance.

“Q1 2022 saw take up 63 per cent higher than the quarterly average, and that follows a 73 per cent increase in Q4 2021, demonstrating significant pent-up demand built up over the last couple of years of restrictions.

“Almost half of the floor space taken has been due to businesses, particularly in the technology, media and telecoms industries, making office moves in order to grow – a very positive sign.”