Partner Article

Leeds city centre office take-up jumps by 260%

The Leeds Office Agents’ Forum (LOAF) has released its quarterly take-up figures for the Leeds office market, which show total city centre take-up reached 203,145 sq ft across 23 transactions in Quarter 2 (Q2 2013), an impressive 260%increase compared with Q2 2012 when just 56,436 sq ft over 19 deals was recorded.

At the half year point (H1 2013) city centre take-up stood at 438,145 sq ft which, according to the Forum’s data which spans over the last decade, is the highest level on record for the first six months of any year.

It is also a 106 percent increase compared with the same period last year (212,288 sq ft) and eight per cent higher than the whole of last year’s total volume (405,953 sq ft).

Eamon Fox, spokesperson for LOAF and director at DTZ in Leeds, said: “Leeds has continued to outperform a number of regional markets in the second quarter of the year.

“Indeed, this is the strongest quarter in terms of city centre take-up volumes since Q4 2003 and would appear to be best start to the first six months of any year in recent memory.

“Already, the total take-up in the first half of this year has exceeded the five year average of 380,000 sq ft.”

The largest city centre transactions were completed at Highcross’ Broad Gate scheme with Yorkshire Building Society taking 76,413 sq ft and CapGemini Financial Services agreeing terms on 25,389 sq ft of space.

The Leeds Office Agents’ Forum was established to collate and distribute definitive office market information.

Its members include BNP Paribas, Carter Towler, CBRE, Colliers International, DTZ, GVA, Jones Lang LaSalle, Knight Frank, Lambert Smith Hampton, Ryden, Sanderson Weatherall, Savills and WSB.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Mark Lane .