The property boasts 240,000 square feet of rentable office space in one of London’s busiest districts.
The is a growing number of flex workspace providers that offer alternatives to leased office space on Gresham Street such as turnkey managed office suites and desk space memberships for coworking offices. See the profiles of the providers of flex space on Gresham Street here
Anne Kavanagh, Global Head of AXA Real Estate Property Services Group commented: “The acquisition of 20 Gresham Street marks the continuation of the momentum we achieved in 2010. We are looking forward to a busy year ahead as we continue to leverage our pan-European platform and take advantage of what we expect to be a more liquid European real estate market.
“As a result, we expect to see an increased level of opportunities across the entire risk spectrum for AXA Real Estate to explore on behalf of its clients.”
So far this year AXA has taken part in more than EUR 2.7 billion worth of transactions all over Europe on behalf of its clients. This boils down to EUR 1.1 billion in acquisitions and approximately EUR 1.6 billion in sales.
The UK made up about 15 per cent of these deals, with France making up 47 per cent and 16 per cent in Switzerland.
According to AXA a slow but steady improvement in the economy of Europe, including deleveraging of banks, will mean the continuation of such geographic trends well into 2011. Property as a fixed asset is very appealing in the current climate the commercial real estate company stated.
AXA is currently headquartered in the 8th arrondissement, Paris. The company currently has approximately EUR 878 billion of assets under management.
The company already owns 23 Avenue Matignon which was formerly the Hotel de La Vaupaliere. AXA hired world-famous architect Ricardo Bofill to combine the old façade of the hotel with a sleek glass building covering the old hotel courtyard.
Editor’s notes: As of June 2023, there was just 13,829 square feet of Grade A office space available to let at 20 Gresham Street – this was part of the third floor.
In January 2024, it was announced that planning had been approved for a full makeover of nearby 65 Gresham Street.
The 20-year-old building, owned by JP Morgan Asset Management, would undergo retrofitting that would see the existing eight-storey block extended to 12 storeys increasing its floor space from 269,000 square feet to 407,000 square feet.
Architects Sheppard Robson would be targetting a 66% whole-life carbon reduction and operational carbon and the scheme’s project team planned for it to become an “exemplar all-electric building in the heart of the City”.
It was understood at the time that the project would commence in June 2025 when the last of the building’s existing tenants had vacated.