Morton Property Consultants are delighted to announce their 5th year anniversary, and thank all their clients and network of contacts for their support over the years and look forward to the next 5!
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Morton Property Consultants are delighted to announce their 5th year anniversary, and thank all their clients and network of contacts for their support over the years and look forward to the next 5!
CoStar Group, Inc., the leading provider of commercial real estate information, analytics and online marketplaces, today announced the CoStar Awards Quarterly Deals winners for the second quarter of 2022. Morton Property Consultants came out on top in the list of winners in the Bristol office market with the Acquisition of Pax8’s new grade A offices at The Distillery, Bristol. The CoStar Awards Quarterly Deals winners are determined by the top deals executed every quarter, based on price and square footage.
Morton Property Consultants are delighted to announce they have been instructed to act on behalf of Evelyn Partners who are considering their real estates options and opportunities in the Bristol office market for Qu1 2024.
The latest Bristol office market overview…
Sometimes persistence and patience are key requirements for an agency – particularly in a volatile market. Ahead of 2020, our client Legal 500 firm Ashfords were looking to acquire 19,050 sq ft in the heart of Bristol City Centre. Following an extensive search of opportunities a short list was selected including expansion within their recently refurbished property at Tower Wharf, which include an array of ESG criteria, crucial for the business and attracting and retaining staff. We were delighted to have successfully advised the business on an expansion to a high quality, hybrid workspace that allows flexibility and productivity to go hand in hand.
Morton Property Consultants are delighted to have been selected to act on behalf of PWC to search and secure new office premises in Cardiff City Centre. The requirement is for grade A new offices of circa 60,000 – 100,000 sq ft.
Morton Property Consultants Wins CoStar’s Q1 2022 CoStar Awards Quarterly Deals Award
CoStar Group, Inc., the leading provider of commercial real estate information, analytics and online marketplaces, today announced the CoStar Awards Quarterly Deals winners for the first quarter of 2022. Morton Property Consultants came out on top in the list of winners in the Bristol office market with the Acquisition of Clarke Willmott’s new grade A offices at Assembly C, Bristol. The CoStar Awards Quarterly Deals winners are determined by the top deals executed every quarter, based on price and square footage.
Clarke Willmott to relocate Bristol Head Office
Bristol law firm Clarke Willmott LLP will relocate to a new head office in Spring 2023 and has taken a pre let of the top two floors of the new 11 storey grade A office being developed at Assembly C in central Bristol Homepage | Assembly Bristol
Stephen Rosser, Clarke Willmott CEO commenting on the rationale for the move stated “The pandemic has transformed ways of working for Clarke Willmott and as a result we have updated our strategy overall and our property strategy specifically.
Our people have performed exceptionally over the last two years whilst working flexibly and largely remotely from home to support our clients. The pandemic has fast tracked our ways of working and transformed the way we operate. As we look forward Clarke Willmott is fully committed to delivering excellent hybrid working. For us this is about facilitating excellent remote working combined with an excellent and appealing office environment in order for staff to enjoy working collaboratively in person with clients and colleagues, whilst also enjoying the culturally important social aspects of work”.
Discussing the reason for the selection of Assembly C as the new location for the firm Rosser added “We were looking for a space that enabled a significant reduction of our overall space requirement given our plans for hybrid working, at the same time we wanted an office that provides an attractive destination for our staff that they will enjoy working in. More broadly given our environmental commitments, we want an office that delivers on that front too. Assembly C meets and in many ways exceeds all of these requirements”.
Clarke Willmott were represented by Morton Property Consultants and are delighted to be partnering with the developers AXA Investment Management with Bell Hammer as their development managers. AXA Investment Managers were represented by JLL
The pandemic has turbo-charged trends around where and how we work. But what does this mean for Bristol businesses looking to get their staff off their sofas and back into the office… and for landlords and developers keen to achieve tenant appeal? Phil Morton from Morton Property Consultants offers his advice.
After a topsy-turvy year, Bristol’s office market is displaying cautious confidence. We saw 20 city centre deals in Q1, totalling 116,457 sq ft – four over 10,000 sq ft. While that’s 20% below the five-year average, it’s still a great achievement during lockdown. A further 105,000 sq ft are in solicitors’ hands.
On the supply side, new Grade A availability stands at 101,682 sq ft (The Distillery and Aurora) with another circa 345,000 under construction at Halo, EQ, Assembly and 1 Portwall Square. Grade B availability is 650,000 sq ft, with some high-quality refurbishment schemes coming online this year.
So, a broadly balanced market through all the grades is keeping headline rents and incentives steady. The overriding trend is that occupiers are looking for lower staff-to-space ratios, but of higher quality, with greater flexibility (contractually and physically) and more wellbeing amenities. Refurbishments coming through have rightly focussed on incorporating new certifications such as WiredScore, CyclingScore, SmartScore, FitWel and WELL.
Landlords will need to think about upgrading ahead of tenants’ lease events… and with rents for quality refurbished space being so close behind Grade A there are big incentives for making that investment. The role of specialist agents like myself is now to understand the mindset of our tenant clients, and ensure that our developer and landlord clients really grasp what matters to them.
A flexible future
A few months into lockdown, we pondered whether the days of the office as we’ve always known them were numbered. Now there’s a recognition that offices play a key role in maintaining business culture, onboarding new personnel and facilitating collaboration.
We’re seeing a range of flexible working arrangements amongst clients – from stipulating core working hours through to agreeing a level of remote working and on to “total trust”. Yes, almost everyone will be looking for a “hybrid solution”, but every occupier will want a bespoke solution dependent upon: the nature of the business: whether they’re in an expansion or consolidation phase; and their staff profile… the younger they are, the more likely they are to want to work in the office.
How the space is fitted out is also key: not just getting the right blend of core and agile space, but also how you create areas where personnel can work at their desk, collaborate or just bump into each other for a serendipitous chat over a coffee. That will determine how much desk space to allow for, along with collaborative areas and communal facilities.
We’re currently acting for some of the city’s biggest occupiers as well as helping smaller businesses plan ahead: our recent deals range from 500 up to 74,000 sq ft. But what everyone now wants is a personal, hands-on service that helps them finesse their future.