GPE Buys Fitzrovia Office As It Maintains 1M SF Flex Push
Great Portland Estates has exchanged on the acquisition of 19-23 Wells Street, W1, for £19M from British Land as it ramps up its flex offer.
Located in Fitzrovia, the 19,200 SF office building comprises a basement, ground and five upper floors, and GPE said it intends to convert the space to its fully managed flex offer and transform the ground floor into amenities for its customers.
The FTSE 250-listed company said the building is within walking distance of several of GPE’s existing holdings, including Wells&More, Elsley House, Kent House and 7-15 Gresse Street. It will add to GPE's growing cluster of fully managed buildings in Fitzrovia.
In April, GPE announced plans to grow its flex portfolio to more than 1M SF, up from 500K SF at the time. It also expanded its team with the appointments of Felicity Roocke as head of workspaces design and delivery, Chris Stokes as head of customer experience, and Trevor Phyo as senior development manager.
In a trading update earlier in October, GPE said it had achieved £6.1M of new lettings in the quarter to 30 September, bringing the total for the financial year to date to £10.5M, with £8.8M of lettings under offer at a 16% premium to estimated rental value.
The company said it “retained confidence” in its portfolio rental value guidance of 3% to 6% growth for the financial year.
GPE recently completed a £350M rights issue and £250M debt issuance, which it said it was looking to deploy into accretive acquisitions, with around £100M of deals under offer and a further £1.6B under “active review or on our watchlist to buy.”
“This is our second fully managed deal within the West End during the last six months,” GPE Investment Manager James Harrop-Griffiths said in a statement on the Wells Street purchase. “The building offers an excellent opportunity for us to enhance our cluster of properties in this vibrant area, enabling us to deliver a diverse range of workspaces for our customers.”
