GPE, British Land, Kier and Aviva were among the big winners at this year's Office Agents Society Development Awards, while RX London's Lois Bond was the outstanding individual winner. CoStar News was there to report.
The 2022 OAS Development awards took place on Friday 10 June at the Honourable Artillery Company in the centre of London, a change of venue for a key industry event not held for the past three years because of the pandemic.
The OAS Awards are the only property awards hosted by agents, led by the Office Agents Society and supported by the City Agents Club and West End Office Agents Society.
This year the three organisations' chosen charity was Small Steps, which focuses on supporting disabled children and their families at the pre-school stage.
CoStar News was again proud to be media partner for the event which was co-hosted by John Pienaar, the well-known television news journalist, and compere Andy Powell.
Pienaar said all should enjoy a "period of calm" in the UK. "There is no prospect of Boris being chucked out of a window by his partyat least three windows," he added.
He said he was sticking to a prediction that Liz Truss would replace Johnson as Prime Minister this year, but with the caveat that he was often wrong and that all should be "wary of writing off Boris Johnson".
Pienaar also implored the audience to remember the enormous distinction between being cynical and being sceptical about politics or in general. "To be cynical is so often lazy and damaging."
Andy Nixon from Knight Frank, representing the Office Agents Society, kicked off the event by welcoming the 320 office agents, developers, architects, landlords and tenants in attendance.
There were 13 awards for developments, refurbishments, regeneration and deals in the City, West End of London and throughout the UK. This year's awards spanned two years, as entries were invited for schemes completed in 2019, 2020 and 2021 due to the pandemic.
The ceremony also included first Outstanding Individual award, which went to the person in the industry who had shown a "standout" performance over the past two years.
That award went to Lois Bond at recently launched London adviser RX London. In March 2022, Bond completed the Marathon des Sables, often dubbed the "toughest foot race on earth", and raised over £8,000 for Teenage Cancer Trust in memory of her cousin Daniel who died at the age of 21 after battling with the disease.
Bond completed the challenge in 40 hours 25 minutes to rank fifth in her category (female 23-39) and 321 overall. The OAS describe it as "an incredible achievement, particularly as she had COVID just before the challenge".
The fund/developer of the year, which spans all markets and recognises developers and funds who have shown leadership in development with their creativity and foresight, was central London listed group GPE.
The OAS said the award recognised the company's "standout performance for delivering best in class design led commercial schemes in the 2020-21 period".
It added: "GPE is a deserved winner with a strong cycle read over the past 10 years putting them in a strong financial position with a deep pool of development opportunities.
The other winners were: