In focus: Making the grade
One week, one city and two different reports on the state of the Nottingham office market.
King Sturge kicked things off last Friday with some heavyweight names from their London office coming to speak about how the downturn has affected the local property market, whilst pointing out that, in fact, London has hardly been affected at all.
Yesterday, I went along Invest in Nottingham’s launch of its much-heralded Commercial Office Market Review at Experian’s futuristic office on NG2. There we heard that Nottingham agents must work together to achieve a vision for the city as a go-to destination for businesses.
However, there was a common theme running through both presentations: the need to address the problem of low-quality Grade C office stock that will be left empty as companies join the flight to quality.
Matt Smith at King Sturge said what will emerge is an underclass of obsolete buildings for which the outlook is bleak. He said a continued downward trend in rents in the secondary market and extended voids reduce the viability of redevelopment or refurbishment and liquidity will be questionable.
At the Invest in Nottingham event yesterday, Mike Taylor of Nottingham Regeneration Limited echoed these sentiments, and called for flexibility from city planners when it came to using dilapidated office stock for other uses.
Clearly, Nottingham finds itself in something of quandary if its planning chiefs can’t get their act together. What’s more, with it now costing £1,900 to obtain planning advice from Nottingham City Council, surely developers will be wary of approaching the planning department with any ideas for flexible uses for outmoded stock?
From 1 January, planning officials at Nottingham City Council started charging £1,200 for a meeting followed by a written response, which itself costs £700. On top of that, if you don’t get the answers you want, subsequent meetings or written responses will cost you another £400.
It’s alright asking for flexibility from developers, but at a time when funding for speculative commercial property is non-existent, then adding an extra financial burden us hardly going to get the creative juices flowing, and Nottingham could be left with a surplus of empty unattractive office space that it’ll never be able to fill. Back to the drawing board, perhaps…
Comments? Sam Metcalf, Insider
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