A stream of high-profile autumn deals is expected to drive the Northern Ireland commercial property market at a “lively pace”, according to a CBRE survey.
A combination of prestige properties coming to the market and banks clearing their property loan books as part of their “deleveraging strategy” will keep all sectors of the market busy until well into the New Year, says the agency’s Belfast managing director, Brian Lavery.
“Although activity in the occupier markets was relatively subdued during the first half of the year, there has been a discernible improvement in activity over the summer months with economic prospects showing signs of improvement,” he explained.
An increasing number of inward investments, particularly from across the Atlantic, is also keeping the office market buoyant. The latest, last week, was the announcement that US legal services provider Baker and McKenzie was basing its new global “centre of excellence” in Belfast.
The Chicago-headquartered law firm, one of the biggest in the world, had considered numerous other locations — including Eastern Europe, Latin America and Africa — before settling on Belfast where it intends to create at least 250 legal, information technology and human resources jobs.
Another of the summer’s headline deals was the £6m sale, to an unidentified purchaser, of the building housing the Premier Inn hotel within the city’s Titanic Quarter.
And later this month the “strong interest” building for the sale of the Windsor House office block on Belfast’s Bedford Street is likely to solidify into a sale far in excess of the £5m guide price.
Retail transactions will also continue to rise, predicts CBRE, with three of this summer’s biggest being the sale of Foyleside Shopping Centre, in Londonderry, and Forestside Shopping Centre in Belfast for £145m to Kildare Partners. The Abbey Centre in Newtownabbey was also sold to NewRiver Retail for over £64m.
Although the centre of Belfast showed no discernible retail growth, the bidding war for sought-after sites is intensifying. The last empty store on Arthur Street — which has evolved into a niche location for mid-market to expensive shops — was eventually secured by ladies wear brand Jaeger.
There is, however, one uncertainty on the near horizon warned Lavery. “The outcome of the referendum on Scottish independence is being closely watched,” he said, “Because it’s expected to have ramifications for the long-running campaign for Northern Ireland to be granted the power to set its own rate of corporation tax.”
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