As a global city, London is a popular base for a range of multi national companies. As well as being the UK’s capital city, London is a major hub for a range of businesses and organisations. When it comes to office space, London offers a great choice of size, type and location.

Enhancing London’s appeal

Offices in London often have great services, and are housed in a diverse range of buildings, from the classic to the modern and contemporary. Financial services are a big sector in London’s business community, and many of the larger offices in London are occupied by banks and organisations involved in finance.

With office space at a premium in many parts of London, there is a lot of demand for bigger, more impressive office space in popular locations. Quality services, well maintained and cared for offices and easy to access locations within existing business areas are the key to finding a good office space that will suit a company’s needs. Now a new office building project has been earmarked for development, which would make it the largest office in London. The project is being commissioned by UBS – the global financial services company.

UBS operates in over 50 countries across the world and has over 64,000 workers. With its headquarters in Switzerland, UBS has now agreed a deal to develop its London base at 4 and 6 Broadgate in the City – London’s financial and trading centre. Office space in the city is amongst the most prestigious and expensive in London, and the new UBS development is likely to cost around £54.50 per square foot.

The site is estimated to cost £340 million to develop, and will be built by the site’s owners British Land and Blackstone – the private equity group. The building will eventually contain 700,000 square foot of office space, with British Land describing the move as demonstrating ‘the enduring appeal of this important City of London office estate.’ The developers also state ‘the new building will enhance the overall quality of Broadgate while generating an attractive development return.’

Banking confidence

This large financial commitment by UBS comes after the European Union’s recent banking stress tests showed the UBS to be in good financial health. The development is still subject to a planning application, which has not yet been submitted.

Meanwhile the US bank JP Morgan is still undecided over whether to go ahead with a new large office development in the Docklands. This would be a twin tower development at the East London site, which is already home to a range of financial organisations such as Barclays and HSBC.

What could be the largest office space in London comes at a time when the banking sector has been going through some exceptional upheavals, including the economic downturn and the banking crisis. Such a large new development could be said to be symbolic of new confidence in the banking sector, especially given the fact that it will be London’s largest new office in an area already regarded as a premium location for national and international business.

Author Bio: Shivani Gurtu-Louth – Operations Manager of Devono Property Limited. Devono are the only commercial estate agents in London to represent tenants looking for office London and commercial property to rent / lease, enquire for offices now. For interviews, quotes, images or comments contact: Shivani Gurtu-Louth Devono Operations Manager Tel(DDI): +44 (0)20 7096 9911 E-mail: sg@devono.com

Category: Business
Keywords: office london