E-commerce giant Amazon has completed its letting of close to 180,000 square feet of offices previously earmarked by coworking group WeWork at Cain International's £800 million The Stage scheme, on the site of Shakespeare’s Curtain Theatre in Shoreditch, London.
The transaction shows tech giant Amazon's continued appetite for London offices, taking its occupancy to well over 1 million square feet in the capital.
The US group has signed for two buildings at the development, taking around 107,000 square feet at The Bard and the 70,000 square feet The Hewett Building on Curtain Road. At The Bard it has signed for floors one to eight and floor 12.
The scheme is close to Principal Place on the edge of the City of London, where Amazon leases more than 400,000 square feet and it also occupies large offices at Sixty London and Moor Place.
In January of this year Cain International, the privately held investment firm, announced it had secured a £188 million refinancing for the residential element at The Stage, entirely from Macquarie Capital.
In April last year, Cain announced that the 19,000-square-foot Museum of Shakespeare will be the centrepiece of the 2.3-acre mixed-use development that includes a 37-storey residential tower with 412 apartments, two office buildings, over 60,000 square feet of retail and restaurants and an acre of new public realm. Other partners in the development alongside Cain are McCourt Global, Galliard Homes, Vanke, Investec and The Estate Office Shoreditch.
In 2017 WeWork completed a prelet of 186,000 square feet at the scheme in a deal that would have seen it occupy five floors in The Hewett building and 13 floors in The Bard building, both on a 25-year lease. By 2020 it had negotiated to cut that back to 75,000 square feet as it began to massively scale back its London office commitments.
Newmark BH2 and Cushman & Wakefield represent The Stage. Cushman & Wakefield advises Amazon.
The City of London has continued to see strong demand for prime offices, particularly from professional services firms. Amazon's move is the largest technology, media and telecom sector letting in central London since TikTok signed for 139,000 square feet at Topland Group and Beltane Asset Management's Verdant development in Farringdon in January last year.
In May, Cain International announced it was to merge with sister business Blackbrook Capital.