Crawley / Gatwick Office Market
17 May 2023
Contrary to public opinion, the market here is broad and varied. Given its proximity to Gatwick airport, a small percentage of aviation-related transactions will always remain, but recent deals include a diversity of firms specialising in medical equipment, healthcare, pharma recruitment, exploration, housebuilders, and energy.
Despite a healthy level of supply (>592,000 sq ft), a small cluster of prime buildings - both in and out of town - have dominated leasing activity, with others likely to languish, and eventually find their way to other uses. The Manor Royal Business District has seen enormous change, with larger offices such as Churchill Court and the various ex-Virgin buildings being repositioned to feed the huge appetite for logistics development. Crawley council have recently acquired the Travel House building, previously occupied by TUI, for £4.55m - setting plans in motion for its conversion into a new Innovation Centre.
In terms of deal sizes, the market has been undeniably thinner than pre-Covid but has been upheld with a decent core of smaller sized transactions. Headline rents creep closer to that elusive £30.00 psf – best thus far is £28.00 psf. This is making speculative development unviable – unless you’re Crawley Council - who have just finished 77,000 sq ft at The Create Building, a new 9 storey speculative office in the heart of its Regeneration Quarter.
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