City construction was the story of the quarter, with starts in the first three months of the year higher than in the whole of either 2014 or 2013.
In total, 1.56m sq ft got under way in the Square Mile, with 330,000 sq ft of this prelet. However, it will not help the supply squeeze, with the availability rate in the City barely budging from 7% – the lowest it has been for 27 quarters.
In central London, overall take-up scraped in above the five-year quarterly average, but dipped on both Q1 2014 and Q4 2014.
Lettings to Deloitte and WeWork totalled more than 440,000 sq ft, but they were the only deals signed over the 100,000 sq ft threshold.
In the West End, a lack of large deals saw take-up dip by 39% on the previous quarter, with the largest letting being The Office Group taking 34,000 sq ft at 2 Stephen Street, W1.
The availability rate rose by 1% on the previous quarter to 5.1%, owing to the drop in take-up.
Key letting: WeWork, Moor Place, EC2, 168,000 sq ft
Growth in the serviced office sector took off this quarter with five out of the top 30 deals in the capital penned by the sector. WeWork was one of the most aggressive. It signed the second-largest deal of the quarter, the 168,000 sq ft letting on Fore Street, one of only two deals to make it into six figures. CBRE and JLL acted as disposing agents. Kontor acted for WeWork.
