BGO, the global real estate investment manager, has signed investment bank Evercore for London Victoria’s largest ever office prelet by rent roll, in a deal first revealed by CoStar News.
Boutique investment bank Evercore is moving from Mayfair to make 105 Victoria Street its London headquarters. The firm is taking 135,000 square feet across five floors at the 445,000-square-foot, ultra-sustainable building.
CoStar News revealed the likely transaction, the third largest in London in 2024, in February.
BGO said the prelet, two years ahead of completion, is in line with a "growing trend amongst occupiers to activate their searches earlier in order to secure premium workspace, seeking out buildings with strong ESG credentials, excellent transport connections and best-in-class facilities".
It added that the commitment to Victoria reflects an "anticipated, emerging shift in the market of occupiers looking beyond their historical locations for office space that supports their sustainability, recruitment and retention aims".
105 Victoria Street is the UK’s largest 100% electric, net zero carbon office development. BGO is targeting BREEAM Outstanding, EPC A and WELL Platinum. The building also includes 25,000 square feet of green space and terracing – more than any commercial building in the West End – including a 200m "walk and talk" track for on-the-move meetings and an urban farm, which will be accessible to all occupiers alongside the 11th floor 200m terrace.
Evercore launched a search via Colliers over a year ago that would see it leave its Mayfair base of more than a decade. It is based across multiple buildings on Stanhope Gate, near Hyde Park.
105 Victoria Street is a pioneering redevelopment of the former House of Fraser building in London's Victoria. Rents of around £130 per square foot are expected at the building.
Welput, the specialist central London office fund managed by BGO, recapitalised its ownership of the former House of Fraser and offices at 105 Victoria Street in London and secured a £400 million development finance facility to fund the construction of its proposed redevelopment in 2022. The scheme is one of the largest speculative West End office projects and was Westminster City Council’s single largest commercial building consent in 2021.
The project’s funding coincided with BGO’s appointment of Skanska as the main contractor.
The development, to which Welput is attaching a gross development value of £1 billion, reworks the department store and offices on the south side of Victoria Street, and has frontages to Artillery Row, Howick Place and Wilcox Place. Welput bought the building in 2005 for £103 million.
Designed by architect Kohn Pederson Fox, alongside interior architect Henning Larsen, 105 Victoria Street proposes up to 450,000 square feet of workspace, including 5,500 square feet dedicated to incubator and affordable space, and over 30,000 square feet of retail.
CBRE and JLL are commercial leasing agents. Colliers advises Evercore.
According to Cushman & Wakefield, as of the beginning of September there had been 5.2 million square feet of take-up for the year, a touch behind 2023 at the same time. It recorded 9.6 million square foot of take-up in 2023 in total and is tracking around 3.4 million square feet under offer.
From a supply perspective there is positive news. As at the end of August, there is 26.7 million square feet of pan-London supply, the same number as a year ago.
The letting to Evercore is the third largest in London this year, following Citadel's 250,000-square-foot move to British Land and GIC's 2 Finsbury Avenue, as revealed by CoStar News, and BDO's 220,000-square-foot move to the M Building, another major offices redevelopment of a former department store, the Debenhams on Oxford Street.