Chancery Lane Becomes London's Fastest-Growing Submarket
Midtown’s Chancery Lane district is the fastest-growing office submarket in London in 2016, according to data collected by commercial property data specialist CompStak. Surprised? So were we.
Chancery Lane’s starting rents have five-year compound annual growth of 20%, higher than any other area within the London market, based on reviewing thousands of lease comparisons across the capital. At that pace, the traditionally legal outpost has narrowed its gap in starting rents with Mayfair and the City submarkets, which grew at 13.7% and 14.1%, respectively.
CompStak gathered detailed lease transaction records from agents, valuers, researchers and rent review consultants, via its online data trading service, CompStak Exchange.
CompStak CEO Michael Mandel says Chancery Lane is benefiting from spillover growth in the City submarket. The area’s lower rents, combined with its central location and ease of access to the City, Mayfair, Farringdon and Soho is driving a steady increase in demand from nontraditional markets.
One notable business that has taken a significant amount of space in the Chancery Lane area is WeWork, the American co-working space provider. WeWork has taken more than 97k SF at 142 Holborn and 69k SF at 14 Gray’s Inn Road in the past year.
Other recent projects in the heart of London’s traditional legal sector include Veridis’ 25-32 Chancery Lane, a 100k SF office and retail development that kept the original façade of the existing Londsdale Chambers. It is set to be completed in the third quarter of 2016. 40 Chancery Lane is also a new office and retail development that was entirely pre-let to Publicis Group in June 2013 for £5.8M per year, with £65/SF on the top three floors. The project completed in July 2015.
