The London office tower referred to as the Cheesegrater but officially known as the Leadenhall Building has passed the half-way mark in terms of pre-let occupancy, with the insurance firm Amlin signed up to take a sizeable chunk of space there from 2015.
Amlin has agreed a non-binding head of terms occupancy deal with the joint venture partners behind the on-going development of the building, namely the two real estate investment giants British Land and Oxford Properties.
The deal commits the specialist insurer and re-insurance business to renting 111,000 sq ft of office space across eight floors of the tower and gives it the option of taking up a further 36,500 sq ft. The building is scheduled for completion in mid-2014.
“Leadenhall will provide our staff with perfectly located offices in this elegant, high rise building and we look forward to moving to our new headquarters in 2015,” said Amlin’s group finance and operations director Richard Hextall.
“This major letting to Amlin is further testament to the world class credentials of The Leadenhall Building – both in terms of the location and prestige of the building itself and the flexibility and quality of the space on offer,” added Paul Brundage, executive vice president of Oxford Properties and its senior managing director in Europe.
The commitment from Amlin follows a little over a year after the international insurance firm Aon agreed to pre-let 191,000 sq ft of offices at the Cheesegrater development. The offices will become Aon’s main base in London, which recently become its international headquarters.
Several major office space development schemes are in progress across the City of London right now with the Cheesegrater among the most high-profile along with the Walkie-Talkie, which is being built on Fenchurch Street, and The Pinnacle, which is taking shape on Bishopsgate.