The latest Crane Survey from Deloitte shows that this year is set to provide the largest volume of completed space in Central London since 2004, partly owing to Goldman Sachs’ 825,000sqft building in Midtown and the number of new starts in 2016. New space under construction has fallen by 13% but remains above the long run average, suggesting that Central London is weathering the storm. However, the ratio of on-site speculative projects has reduced with more projects requiring a pre-let and the average size of new schemes is a third smaller, perhaps indicating higher levels of caution. However, the focus of this report is projects on site, not those in the yet to come on stream.
The report marked a change in the occupier market, too. Flexible workspace providers account for nearly 9% of the development pipeline listed in the article, an increase from 5% in the summer edition. The firm remarked that start-ups are shunning traditional secondary space, looking for grade A quality offices instead, a theme common through tech firms too, who overtook finance in leasing activities.
