Quartermile’s Paul Curran on the Edinburgh property market

Quartermile managing director Paul Curran has appeared as one of the keynote speakers at the recent CoStar Awards, which recognise the UK’s top commercial property agencies.

After the ceremony, CoStar interviewed Paul to get his thoughts on the outlook for Edinburgh’s commercial property market.

Paul said: “I think Edinburgh’s property market is very strong in terms of both the residential and commercial aspects. The city’s demand for office space is very high and there’s a very limited pipeline of new developments coming through. With the backing of M&G Real Estate, we’re currently constructing the only speculative office building in Edinburgh, and half of that is already let to FanDuel.

“The limited supply of commercial space in the city has fuelled increases in rent, so it’s a very strong market. Basically, if you have a site in Edinburgh, you should be building on it. London is viewed by many companies as being too expensive, so there are opportunities for growth in other UK cities such as Manchester and Edinburgh.”

Construction of Quartermile 4 is well underway and is due to be completed in April 2016. It is being built as a result of an £80m funding deal secured by Quartermile with M&G last June to speculatively develop the remaining two office buildings at the development. It will provide Grade A office space for over 2,000 people and will complete the office component at the development. The companies that choose to relocate to Quartermile will be in good company, with flight search engine business Skyscanner, Investec and IBM based there.

With a projected completion date of 2018, Quartermile will provide over 1,050 apartments, 300,000 sq ft of Grade A office accommodation, 65,000 sq ft of retail and leisure space and seven acres of open landscaping in Edinburgh.

Read the blog post by Quartermile managing director Paul Curran on how the demand for commercial property in the capital is outstripping supply.