Galliard Group, a London developer, is launching Evolve, a new £100 million ($130 million) commercial property business that will build affordable luxury work space schemes across London and the South East.
Over the last three years there has been a significant increase in small and medium-sized firms across London and the South East choosing to locate to community-style work space schemes, said Galliard.
The first Evolve scheme is in Colchester, a 5.7-acre site and 50,000-square-foot, two-story development offering 90 work space units (phase 1) and five other stand-alone traditional office buildings (phase 2); with two other Evolve projects in the planning pipeline, a 2.19-acre site and 50,000-square-foot development offering 90 small business units in Milton Keynes and a 1.5-acre site and 36,000-square-foot development offering 45 business units in London’s Watford.
Over the next five years, Evolve plans to build work space schemes across London, the surrounding M25 commuter belt and Home Counties.
There are three key audiences for the new Evolve offering. The first is investors, who have the opportunity to buy work space units for rental investment. The rental income can be offset against costs making the investment tax efficient. The investor acquires a freehold commercial property, benefitting from zero stamp duty and zero business rates (depending on circumstances), which can be placed in a SIPP or investment portfolio. In terms of rental return, the units at Colchester have a projected gross yield of 8 per cent.
The second audience is start-up and established companies who can acquire small and medium-sized work space units to rent or buy. Occupiers will benefit from flexible leases and the opportunity to move into a brand new, split level, “ready to go” unit with high-speed Internet, lifestyle facilities and parking. The third audience are land/building owners and investors who may wish to partner with Galliard Group and develop an Evolve work space scheme, transforming existing or redundant premises into a vibrant new business community.
Another firm recently expanded in the flexible workspace sector. United Kingdom–based investment company Landsec launched its new flexible office brand, Myo, providing customized office space for businesses looking for flexibility to enable future growth.
And more than two-thirds of global companies plan to increase their use of flexible co-working and collaborative space over the next three years, according to Knight Frank. The finding comes after the consultancy surveyed 120 global businesses that collectively employ more than 3.5 million people and occupy some 233 million square feet (21.6 million square meters) of office space.
Global corporates favor operating increasingly from co-working, flexible, and serviced spaces in order to create a more collaborative working environment and offer the freedom to expand and contract quickly according to market conditions. 75 percent of respondents said that they were also aiming to boost employee happiness and productivity through the utilization of flexible business spaces.
