Continued growth for Granite City
Oil price rise fuels an increase in demand for office space both in the centre of Aberdeen and its environs, writes Kirsty Mcluckie
According to the latest research published by the property consultancy CBRE Scotland, the Aberdeen office market has continued its strong performance for 2018.
The Granite City saw a further 96,819 sq ft of office space transactions in the third quarter, which is an 8 per cent increase on Q2.
This brings the total take-up in Aberdeen for the first three quarters of the year to some 275,36 sq ft.
There were 23 office market deals successfully transacted in Q3 which, perhaps predictably, saw a particularly high demand coming from the energy sector.
The largest letting of the quarter was Noble Drilling’s acquisition of 16,591sq ft in the Stratus Building at ABZ Business Park in Dyce.
Other notable deals from the energy sector included INEOS taking 9,702sq ft on the second floor of Prime View, in the Prime Four Business Park at Kingswells to the west of Aberdeen, and Sentinel Marine and Solstad Offshore UK taking on 4,515sq ft and 4,713sq ft, respectively, within The Exchange development on Market Street in the city centre.
Significant transactions have also been completed within a range of other sectors, with NHS National Services Scotland taking almost 10,000sq ft on the fourth floor of 1MSQ at Marischal Square, and training consultancy Millstream securing more than 6,000sq ft in AB1 on Huntly Street.
Commenting on the latest figures, Amy Tyler, a chartered surveyor in CBRE’S Aberdeen office, said: “It’s great news that the growth we saw in the first half of 2018 has continued into the third quarter.
“There is no doubt that the recent rise in oil price is
continuing to contribute to the demand.
“However, while many of our completed transactions have been from within the oil and gas industry, there has been significant uptake from other sectors.
“This clearly demonstrates the desire, across the board, for high-quality and welllocated
office space, whether that be city-centre based, or on the periphery.
“The total amount of available office space at the end of the third quarter was 2.67 million sq ft, which is down 7 per cent year-on-year, showing an increased demand.
And Tyler is confident that this will be the case in Aberdeen’s
commercial property market for some time yet.
She said: “We have a number of transactions waiting to conclude before the end of the year which will further decrease the amount of available space.
“All the signs are that the growth that we have seen in the first three quarters of 2018 is set to continue.”
“While many of our transactions have been from within the oil and gas industry, there has been significant uptake from other sectors”