Welcome to the second update of 2019, giving you an up-to-date view of the commercial property news in West London. Featured in this issue: Market Summary, Take-Up, Chiswick Cinema opening date & Kensington take-up by sector study
TAKE-UP
HAMMERSMITH & FULHAM (H&F)
Commercial Property News:
Office take-up in the Borough was its highest ever at 220,590 sq ft due to several large lettings, reducing supply to 7.7% from 8.7% in 3 months.
WHITE CITY (H&F) Commercial Property News:
The fashion company Global Brands Group and its sister company, Li & Fung signed a lease at £52 per sq ft to relocate their European headquarters to the 50,500 sq ft 5th floor of the West Works Building, White City Place. West Works is one of the former BBC Buildings in Wood Lane developed by Stanhope, Mitsui Fudosan and AIMCo.
Global Brands Group works with fashion brands such as Calvin Klein and manages the ‘brands’ of celebrities such as Jennifer Lopez and David Beckham. Li & Fung is a Hong Kong based multinational corporation, managing supply chains for brands and retailers worldwide. Clothing makes up 2/3 of its business.
HAMMERSMITH (H&F) Commercial Property News:
In Hammersmith town-centre, Hyperoptic the optical fibre provider, leased
18,400 sq ft on the 2nd and 3rd floors of Frost Meadowcroft clients, Kier and Investec new Kings House at 174 Hammersmith Road at a rent of £52 per sq ft.
OLYMPIA (H&F) Commercial Property News:
WeWork took another building in the Borough, Avon House, a 30,000 sq ft office building in Kensington Village near Olympia that is owned by Frost Meadowcroft client, Columbia Threadneedle. On the same estate Arrival, the electric delivery vehicle company, expanded to 45,000 sq ft in Beaumont House.
Kensington Village is a gated campus of former Victorian warehouses with a green, gym and café in the centre of the campus. It was originally the Depository for Whiteley’s, the first department store in the UK, established in 1863 as a ‘fancy goods’ shop owned by William Whiteley in Westbourne Grove.
CHISWICK Commercial Property News:
Discovery Channel renewed their lease at the 100,000 sq ft Building 2, Chiswick Park and MicroStrategy leased the 9,250 sq ft ground floor of Building 10 at £52.50 per sq ft. There have been 4 lettings this quarter at Frost Meadowcroft client Helical Bar’s Power Road Studios including the 7,500 sq ft letting to So Energy at £43 per sq ft.
KENSINGTON Commercial Property News:
At 127 Kensington High Street, Spaces, the co-woking company has leased 54,000 sq ft. Co-working remains the dominant sector of the borough in terms of take up.
Q2 HEADLINES
commercial property news
The Chiswick Cinema has announced that the expected new opening date is Autumn/Winter 2020. Works have started and the cinema has now sold all of its initial founder memberships.
In addition to the 5 screens there will be an exclusive Members’ bar with a private dining and party room. Programming will include a mixture of current releases, family screenings and a broad range of events including theatre, visual arts, music events, opera, musical theatre and dance.
The site is the former Rambert Dance Company building which was sold by Frost Meadowcroft to the cinema. Rambert moved to a larger, purpose-built venue on the South Bank.
In 1911 there was an Electric Cinema on Chiswick High Road at the junction of Duke Road. It had a sliding roof which would be operated during the interval so that ‘foul air could be released’. It showed Oliver Twist and Showboat in the 1920’s but suffered financially and closed in 1933.
TAKE UP BY SECTOR – Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea (RBKC)
Take-Up By Size (sq ft
Our research of take-up over the last year shows that the amount of take-up continues to be dominated by the co-working/serviced office sector. This sector leased 33% of the total space taken in the Borough from Q2 2018 to Q2 2019 including 54,000 sq ft leased by Spaces at 127 Kensington High Street. Finance was the next largest sector at 14% whilst technology companies such as Talk Talk and App Nest took 13% of the space. The amount of space taken by technology companies has substantially increased compared to previous years.
Take Up by number of Transactions
In terms of the number of leasing transactions, media, creative and artistic were the largest sector accounting for 17% of transactions followed by finance at 14% .
This research illustrates how the music industry, the once dominant sector in the Borough, has now largely migrated east to Kings Cross. There are still numerous media/creative companies as well as artists taking space in the Borough, though mostly in smaller buildings.
