BT lines up Manchester office
After signing a lease on the entirety of 125 Deansgate from landlord Worthington Properties, Spaces is understood to have now agreed a deal to manage the whole building on behalf of BT.
The coworking arm of Regus announced in May it would be moving into the 116,000 sq ft building in the centre of Manchester following its completion at the end of this year.
Now, market rumours suggest that Spaces has waded into the long-running BT requirement, which has seen the telecommunications company courted by developers and office agents across the city. BT has been looking for between 150,000 sq ft and 200,000 sq ft in Manchester, visiting schemes such as Bruntwood SciTech’s Circle Square, Hermes’ Noma, U+I’s Mayfield, and Allied London’s Enterprise City.
BT has been particularly linked with Circle Square; there are 400,000 sq ft of offices being built on the Oxford Road site, with completions due between 2020 and 2022.
The agreement with Spaces at 125 Deansgate is understood to be on a three-year managed contract, potentially delivering ‘swing space’ for BT before it moves on to a longer term office. The arrangement echoes that of Amazon and WeWork at Hanover House; the building is operated by WeWork, while Amazon is the majority tenant.
BT is represented by JLL, while Knight Frank, Savills and Cheetham & Mortimer are the agents for Worthington. Spaces and the agents have been contacted for comment.
Spaces was founded in the Netherlands, and was acquired by Regus in 2015 as part of the serviced office operator’s bid to compete with the rapid rise of WeWork.
Has amazon moved into Hanover yet?
By York Street
Together with the failure to announce the city safe, and that they can STILL to this day flog their building to any tom, dick or harry for conversion to slum apartments/scummy budget hotel, I would suspect taking such a large amount of space in Manchester represents almost certain doom for the hundreds of staff BT currently employ in Liverpool.
I even notice in Liverpool city council’s secret commercial district SRF (I assume secret anyway, given their lack of consultation resulting in their having to extend the consultation period) that the art deco building is earmarked as a potential for conversion. Although given the easy to apply loopholes left for anyone who wishes to leave their office building fallow, it only points to the obvious anyway.
This is the real cost of our city council’s appalling decade. All we ever hear from him is about his own budget, while the city his council is meant to serve goes down the pan, the other cities get the good jobs and our people, uniquely among the major cities, get poorer (source: ONS latest GVA statistics).
By Mike
Yep, unspoken that hundreds of BT staff in Liverpool in what’s left of the business district are likely to find themselves moved soon enough, only a few years after much trumpeted expansion. Tbf I believe the same is likely to happen to BT Leeds staff, but Leeds can take the hit easier. And what do we hear from Anderson or Rotherham, nothing, are their teams speaking to BT? I doubt it. They barely even talk up success like Stadler moving it’s UK HQ to the city. Even the opposition in the city, i.e. the other bits of Labour and Lib Dems, are more interested in courting the suburban NIMBY vote and living in fantasy land that a handful of, very admirable, tiny social enterprises, can replace a real diverse economy.
By SP
Oh this isn’t good news for Liverpool office’s! When I read on the internet about Liverpool business and office’s it sounds like it’s because government is bias against Liverpool and pro all other city’s especially Sheffield Manchester and Birmingham! Are they managing our decline like they said?! We need our council to build more office’s and especially incubator’s so more jobs stay in Liverpool!
By Mary Woolley
There’s thousands of staff in BT’s main office in Liverpool, not hundreds. Unlikely they’d close that and move them to Manc.
By Thom Leatherbarrow
Mary Wooley: please stop pretending you’re from Liverpool and write honest comments even if they do reflect your anti-Liverpool bias. No-one thinks the Government favors every other city other than Liverpool. Liverpool is doing extremely well in so many ways but you love noting that it loses out to Manchester on the office front at the moment. It’s a winner in very many other ways! Liverpool doesn’t need to compare itself to every other city. It’s doing much better than most!
By Roscoe
Hi Mr Roscoe! I am very very pro Liverpool! We are the best historic city and invented the telephone wire that goes underneath the sea and the telephone pole so I don’t see why BT would move away from Liverpool but all I read on the internet is how government is so bias against Liverpool and want to move office’s away to other city’s!! We need more Liverpool office’s for more jobs for our youngster’s!
By Mary Woolley
There may well be thousands in Liverpool office not hundreds, in which case even bigger risk. I know the unions are worried and BT has repeatedly refused to confrim Liverpool office is safe. Not just Liverpool of course. Same thing with HMRC which Liverpool (Region) was spared loss of, but there has been a blead of high value HMRC jobs in Liverpool for a long while
By SP
I know there are a lot of metaphors for Liverpool’s lack of office space at the moment but the sight of a Central and Moorfields stations speaks volumes. Any other city and they would be ground floor stations to office blocks. We have got to fight the prejudice and skewed statistics.
By MMcDrama
Yes MrMcDorma! We must fight anti Liverpool bias wherever we go and build more office’s! Especially incubator’s!
By Mary Woolley