Take up of Manchester Office Space tops 500,000 square feet
September 30th, 2008 | by Simon RattrayIn a month of unprecedented economic gloom, it appears that office space in Manchester could be bucking the current trend.
Property agents Colliers CRE have revealed that take up for the last six months in the city is over half a million square feet. Whilst this may be an admirable achievement for the city, it is important to note that the amount of available space is now at a two year high of 2 million square feet, of which 790,000 sq ft is brand new space.
Colliers CRE noted that the strong offering that Manchester’s office market presents to businesses, coupled with the fact that operating costs are much lower than in
London, means that major financial institutions would continue to look towards Manchester as a location for their back office staff. And with impressive developments such as Spinningfields, it is easy to see why businesses are keen to have a presence in the city.
Notwithstanding the fall in rental values in the City of London, operating costs in Manchester are still substantially lower. And with such a superb portfolio of office space available, Manchester is the obvious choice for companies looking to relocate outside of the capital.
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9 Responses to “Take up of Manchester Office Space tops 500,000 square feet”
By Sabrina Chapur on Sep 30, 2008 | Reply
I was quite worried about the whole situation and filling our own office space in Manchester, but things have been going well.
A few companies that I speak to around the area are also saying the same thing, so maybe the hype is hiding the fact that we are still doing well in our own little part of Manchester!
By DaveM on Sep 30, 2008 | Reply
Yeah, its not been too bad for us either, as the last comment also has said.
I still expect an overall downturn over the year, but not as bad as some people are saying.
By James Jones on Sep 30, 2008 | Reply
Being quite close to Manchester and the office space world there, we see that its performing quite well.
Companies that have their eye on the ball such as Yourspace and TheWorks are riding it well it seems.
Those who are not really working hard enough on the web, namely eOffice, seem to be doing very badly by the huge amounts of empty space in their Portland Street office.
By SJR on Sep 30, 2008 | Reply
Manchester is uniquely placed outside of London in my opinion. It has…
* A plethora of graduate calibre staff to choose from (4 universities)
* Fantastic transport links - 2 hours 20 minutes to London by train, A tram network, lots of buses, a major airport
* Can attract staff from the whole of the north west
* A huge selection of office space (including grade A office space)
* Hundreds of Bars, clubs, restaurants
I think the agents have been hugely successful in marketing the city to their clients, look a Spinningfields which fully occupied and expanding with another 500,000 square feet. I think Manchester has comfortably overtaken Birmingham as the UK’s #2 city.
As regards eoffice, I have heard that there offices are quite a tight squeeze
By Brian Hargreaves on Sep 30, 2008 | Reply
I take exception to Manchester being the 2nd city. Manchester city centre itself is actually quite small. Mancs seem to forget this.
If you want to include places such as Bolton, Oldham etc to make you slightly larger than Birmingham, then it says a lot.
Dont get me wrong, Manchester is great in the centre, but a 5 minute walk away is nothing to offer any business.
By Andy Howard on Sep 30, 2008 | Reply
At my business centre, we have plenty of footfall at the moment, without the same conversion rates that we have been used to in the past.
Im noticing that people are becoming more frugal when it comes to bartering for costs etc.
By James Jones on Sep 30, 2008 | Reply
Being frugal is to be expected because of the credit crunch I suppose, but the good news is that people are still visiting Manchester serviced office buildings in the first place.
I have seen in the past year a greatly improved understanding from the business community around serviced offices, so thats a good sign at least, no matter what those senators decide in the US in the next few days.
By Jim Fryer on Sep 30, 2008 | Reply
Referring to SJR’s post, Birmingham also has all of the things that you say about Manchester.
Birmingham is a great place to take office space in. As for bars and clubs after work, have you not seen Broad Street? A great place to entertain clients on a night out.
Brindley Place has some really good grade A office space and some of the local streets including Broad Street again have some great serviced offices.
And what about the transport links? M6, M1, M42 all are very close to the city indeed.
Birmingham is a great place for office space!
By James Jones on Sep 30, 2008 | Reply
Back to the point of the article, Manchester is a great place to work from and from what I have seen, Manchester office space has plenty to offer many different types of business.
Lets leave the north/south debate for another time :)