EMA signs for 25 years

In a period of shorter leases, the European Medicines Agency (EMA) has signed a pre let for 25 years for half the 46,450 sq.metres (500,000 sq.ft.) in Canary Wharf’s 25 Churchill Place, Docklands.

The agency will get a 37 month rent free period but has agreed no break clauses in the lease. This building will complete the original plan for Canary Wharf. In another deal at the nearby One Canada Square, MetLife is moving into the top floor of the skyscraper where it already occupies the 28th floor.

At the moment EMA is housed in 11 Westferry Circus, E14, which the German open ended fund Union Investments wants to sell. The price tag on the 10,591 sq.metres (114,000 sq.ft.) property is around £75 million. It was formerly the headquarters of Readers Digest. Ballymore has chosen the Royal Docks for a major scheme of 232,250 sq.metres (2.5 million sq.ft.) on a 41 acre site at Minoco Wharf.

It would be part of the area’s new Enterprise Zone and would include a new town square and park. On the assumption that the current development phase is coming to an end, the market may shift to a bout of pre letting as companies realise they have to find space for future growth.

Certainly, CB Richard Ellis expects an increase in pre letting as the only option for large occupiers as availability has fallen by 706,040 sq.metres (7.6 million sq.ft.) since 2009. That situation is reinforced by there being only 603,850 sq.metres (6.5 million sq.ft.) under construction in central London, of which nine cater for large occupiers. That makes the timing of Sellar Property’s The Place, a 17 storey scheme of 55,740 sq.metres (600,000 sq.ft.) at London Bridge Quarter to add to the Shard, a good piece of timing. This part of London is being transformed with a new public piazza, railway station concourse, underground, shopping mall and bus station. Irvine Sellar, the developer, said: “The Place will be London’s largest and most efficient office building to hit the market in 2013, at a time when there is expected to be a real shortage of Grade A space available.”

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