GVA Grimley release office building research for North West

27 January 2009 11:11 Michael Hunt Comments (0)

GVA Grimley has chosen Liverpool and Manchester amongst other cities for a new research document released this month analysing office building specifications.

The research, which will be updated annually, examines what is being built in key regional city centres and responds to the much posed question: what should an occupier expect for their money and what should a developer expect to provide?

The research focuses on office building specifications across the UK amongst recently completed new-build offices or buildings currently under construction with a view to establishing how best practice is actually being implemented on the ground. It is in response to client requests, both from occupiers and developers, for information as to precisely what is being built and hence what should be built.

Buildings examined were within the main regional cities in the UK and the aim of the research was to examine whether regional variations of office buildings exist and if so, what these are.

The key areas for analysis included the following:

Type of conditioning and comfort cooling
Raised floor depths
Floor to ceiling heights
Occupational capacity and constraints
Floor loadings
BREEAM ratings
Sustainability initiatives

The criteria for involvement in the research varied according to location, but the general parameters to be used were:

Built or refurbished no earlier than 2007
City centre location
50,000 sq ft or greater
Four or five buildings in each of our regional centres

The city centres chosen are all locations where GVA Grimley has local representation including Birmingham, Bristol, Cardiff, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester, Newcastle, London West End and the City of London.

Manchester's Spring Gardens and Belvedere were amongst some of the buildings under review.