Reading: Co-working space takes off across town centre
Nearly 150,000 sq ft of office space in Reading has been taken up by companies offering co-working and serviced facilities, the latest update from Hicks Baker shows.
In the past six months over 146,709 sq ft has been let to companies offering serviced/managed offices and co-working facilities.
Instant Offices’ signed on 42,000 sq ft at 1 Kennet Place just before Christmas with Prudential as its ‘anchor tenant’. Following Spaces’ move to 9 Greyfriars Road (42,120 sq ft) last year, many of the other established Grade A office buildings have been ‘retro-fitting’ co-working space as part of their offer to tenants.
Workdays’ 8,700 sq ft operation at The White Building has been quickly followed by two floors (circa 16,000 sq ft) at The Blade, 19,000 sq ft let to Central Working at R+, and Foraspace’s imminent arrival at Thames Tower where it will be offering 27,589 sq ft of managed and collaborative working space.
Modern vibrant workplaces offering on-site events, concierge facilities, exposed services and ‘funky’ finishes continue to remain on trend. The desire to be part of a dynamic business community, both within a town such as Reading and sometimes within an individual building, has never been more significant, reports Hicks Baker in its market commentary.
Reading still leading the way
The Reading office market (for deals over 5,000 sq ft) continued to outperform its long-term average (but only just) with a total of 380,000 sq ft of office transactions for the 12-month period. The take-up rate in 2017 nevertheless represented a 17% fall on the previous year’s figures (2016: 460,000 sq ft).
Despite this, Reading continues to be the most successful office location in the Thames Valley, comparing in 2017 with the likes of Maidenhead (143,000 sq ft of space let, of which 90,000 sq ft was out of town and 56,750 sq ft in just one building (the letting of Voyager Place to FM Global in December) and Bracknell which saw the highest level of market activity for many years but, at 300,000 sq ft, still fell short of Reading’s performance.
Record rent established
Thames Tower, Landid and Brockton’s iconic new development directly opposite the station, has again been the town-centre’s star performer.
Following smaller lettings to MBNL, Make-A-Wish and Nexus Planning, the announcement of a significant deal with Ericsson is a major coup both for the building and for Reading. The communications giant is moving from Guildford and was widely tipped to be looking at buildings in Slough before signing on three floors totalling 37,632 sq ft. At a reported headline figure of £38 per sq ft, albeit with a substantial rent-free period and incentives package attached, this sets a new high-water mark for office rents in the town.
Coupled with lettings in most of the other town-centre Grade A buildings (The Blade, 3 Forbury Place, The White Building and R+), the Thames Tower lettings boosted the Q1/18 figures after a very sluggish start to the year. This pattern was carried over from 2017 which was generally regarded as a difficult year in which to close transactions.
Stephen Head
Director - agency (offices and industrial)
[email protected]
