Covent Garden offices set for residential conversion

Dukelease purchase Bedford Street property for £10.3m

Article posted: 07 Jan 2011

Dukelease has purchased offices in Covent Garden with the intention of converting them for residential use.

The 16,349 sq ft property at 17-19 Bedford Street was sold by GMS Estates for £10.3m, a yield of around 3.25%.

A study from H2SO in November last year found that there is a growing trend to convert offices into homes with over 4m sq ft of offices within Westminster planning authorities’ boundaries that were converted to other uses between 2001 and 2009. Of this total, around 3m sq ft was converted to residential accommodation while a further 1m sq ft-plus was converted to hotel, leisure and other non-office uses.

With a further 1.8m sq ft of additional planning permissions lodged with Westminster for schemes that will also involve the conversion of offices to another use, the report noted that "it is clear that the trend is unlikely to disappear in the medium-term."

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Posted by Sophie