Property Week
23 Nov 2007

Westward drift
Chiswick Park is being speculatively expanded to lure more West End deserters.

By David Hatcher

Agents at Chiswick Park use an old marketing ploy – they call their tenants ‘guests’.

It is a message that Bovis Lend Lease has taken on board. The contractor is understood to have leased 100,000 sq ft at Building 4, reducing the total amount of available space at Stanhope’s 928,500 sq ft office park to just 65,000 sq ft.

Demand has forced development out of Chiswick Park’s boundaries and on to the town’s high street. In response, 840,000 sq ft of speculative office space is expected to be delivered at the park by 2010.

Building 9, which is under construction, will add 160,000 sq ft in July 2008. It will be followed by the 145,000 sq ft Building 8, and finally by Buildings 6 and 7, which total 530,000 sq ft and should reach completion in 2010.

Preceding these developments, IVG finished the construction of its 21,824 sq ft scheme, named ‘the Building’, at the gateway to Chiswick Park this month. It will be launched in January and has not yet secured a tenant, but the quoting rent of £37.50/sq ft matches that of Chiswick Park. Whether this is an ambitious figure remains to be seen.

Stanhope believes its development is a sign that the park is beginning to have a positive effect on the area.

‘The whole street is coming closer to us,’ says Stanhope leasing director Henry Williams. ‘Retail and residential are spreading slowly our way too. We have a good relationship with the high street and we now even have a discount card, which employees on the site can use at various shops. We like to think we have a very positive effect on the local area.’

Short on space

While Chiswick Park has a large development pipeline, its current amount of available space is relatively small. This may pose problems if West End occupiers wished to relocate quickly, or tenants wished to increase their requirement suddenly. They may have to look for space close to, but outside of, Chiswick Park.

Robert Godfrey, investment director at Savills, believes the attraction of out-of-town locations is obvious, when West End rents are rising to £140/sq ft in ‘super-prime’ areas.


‘Grade A stock is at a shortage in the West End, and Chiswick and Hammersmith will benefit more than anywhere else because of their location if they provide grade A office stock,’ he says.

Tullow Oil relocated to Chiswick Park from the West End in July 2005, attracted by the drop in rent from £52/sq ft to £30/sq ft.

Graham Martin, general counsel at Tullow, says: ‘Our competitors were moving out from the West End to areas like Woking and Reading, but we felt that Chiswick combined the best price with the best environment. Importantly, it also had scope for us to expand.’

Martin acknowledges the drawbacks of being in a fringe location, however.

‘We have to offer staff a lot of benefits to keep them happy,’ he admits. ‘We provide flexible working hours and let them work from home. Commuting can be a nightmare from the east or the north.’

But will other tenants continue to be drawn away from more prestigious areas to suffer such drawbacks?

Marianne Thomas, associate director at Jones Lang LaSalle and leasing director at Chiswick Park, says: ‘We strongly believe that demand is sustainable, but any long-term success is down to the make-up of the local community.

‘The demographic of the area is fantastic. There are a lot of skilled 18-to-34-year-olds within a half-an-hour commute. Within Chiswick, Clapham and south-west London there are a lot of university-educated workers.’

With a limited development pipeline in west London, Chiswick Park stands out for having the largest amount of space coming to the market.

Delivering such a vast amount of space may appear a bold move, but Stanhope believes its gradual delivery, against a backdrop of little competition in the west London market, should keep tenants flowing in from the West End – especially if they are treated as guests.