According to the firm’s national offices director, James Preece, there are signs that the city’s currently subdued office space market will see a notable increase in activity levels in the latter months of the year. Preece noted that while the take-up of offices in central Bristol in the second quarter of 2012 was little changed from the previous quarter, the figures for both periods were considerably higher than a year ago.
Taking each of the city’s various sub-markets into account, however, office space take-up was down during the first half of 2012 compared with the same period a year ago. However, the number of enquiries on larger sites over the summer months should mean that more positive numbers will be recorded in the second half of the year, according to Preece’s assessment.
“The Bristol office market reflects current economic conditions being slower than the first half of 2011,” he said. “The city centre has been most affected due to a lack of large deals and Grade A transactions. The out-of-town market is behaving in a similar way to the start of 2011 in terms of overall square footage transacted, however there is still a lack of large transactions here as well.”
According to Colliers, the largest out-of-town office deal agreed upon in the first half of 2012 saw the business consultancy Jelf relocate to a 24,230 sq ft property in Chipping Sudbury.
Elsewhere, a recent report on the UK’s regional office space markets from another principal commercial property advisor, CB Richard Ellis, suggested that Manchester should also see improvements in the scale of its office space renting activity in the second half of 2012.
Editor’s notes: In 2023, take-up totalled 696,047 square feet in Bristol, 23 per cent below the 10-year average.
Key deals in the city included Dyson renting 66,317 square feet at 1 George’s Square, DLUP taking 28,550 square feet at Neighbourhood North, and Deloitte leasing 6,730 square feet at Halo.
Bristol’s prime office rent remained unchanged in Q1 2024 for the seventh consecutive quarter at £42.50 per square foot per annum.