Commercial Property News

BlackRock, the New York-based investment manager,  has boosted the City office market by taking a lease on the whole of the 300,000 sq ft Drapers Gardens development, for a term of 25 years at a rent of £49 per sq ft on the office accommodation with a rent free period of 36 months. The rent is subject to open market reviews on every fifth anniversary of the term commencement and in the case of the first rent review subject to a floor of 2.5% and a cap of 4.5% compounded annually over the preceding five years.

Drapers Gardens,  designed by Foggo Associates, comprises ground and 13 upper floors of prime commercial office development in the heart of the City of London, in the Bank conservation area.

Richard Kushel, Vice Chairman at BlackRock, commented:  "BlackRock's long-term lease at Drapers Gardens fits our needs precisely."

"Located in the heart of the City of London, the new building provides an environmentally-friendly state of the art facility for our business and an excellent working environment for our employees."

 "Bringing our London offices into a single facility has been a high priority since BlackRock's acquisition of Barclays Global Investors in December.  This will further the integration and fully enable us to leverage BlackRock's breadth of resources on behalf of our clients."

Clive Bush, joint founding partner of Exemplar Developments, said: "Drapers Gardens is a first class project and comes from the cohesive collaboration of numerous parties including the Drapers Company, Exemplar, Canary Wharf Group plc (CWG) and MSREF V."

 "The building represents a best in class development, this fact being endorsed by the BlackRock letting completing just two months after practical completion."
 
CWG acted as Development Manager on the Drapers Gardens development.

George Iacobescu, Chief Executive of CWG said: "This project has given us the chance to demonstrate our construction skills on a high quality project in the Square Mile in partnership with the outstanding capabilities of Sir Robert McAlpine Limited".

 "There are increasingly few top-quality office buildings available in London, and we are pleased to help provide a world class company like BlackRock with an opportunity to expand into a new office. The successful completion and letting of Drapers Gardens further emphasises the position of London as a global business centre."

CWG owns 20% of the share capital in the companies that own the property which reached practical completion in late 2009, and in addition, CWG recently purchased the substantial majority of the drawn balance under the Drapers Gardens construction loan facility, although the values were not disclosed.