Economic Crisis Hits Demand for London Office Space

The company behind Canary Wharf, Songbird Estates has said that they hope for a boost from the London 2012 Olympics for the developments they own and that the event will put their properties into the spotlight and encourage more businesses to move to the Docklands development.

They did admit though, that the demand for high grade office space throughout London had fallen due to the economic crisis. However, they did then say that they would be in a position to take advantage when the whole situation improves.

The transfer of Shell employees, along with the phased movement of JP Morgan staff to Canary Wharf in the coming year will mean the whole business office establishment will have over 100,000 workers for the first time ever.

Songbird have said that the impact on Canary Wharf from the nearby Westfield shopping centre opening had been fairly muted so far. They have seen mixed results from its first full year figures. Its net asset value has risen from 187p to 190p. Also, their underlying profit fell from £28.8m to £4.6m mainly due to the reduced rental income from lease surrenders, which include a £495m sale to JP Morgan in December of 2010.

Canary Wharf isn't the only place in London to have suffered, there are a lot of other places, business centres around London that will have seen a fall in the demand for offices. However, on a positive note for Songbird, their shares have risen by 3.75p to 112.75p.

If you're one of the probably few people who is looking for some new office space in London, perhaps in Canary Wharf then you should pay a visit to Official Space and check out their wide range of London based office space.