London View

Oxford Street

Oxford Street is commonly regarded as the UK's premier retail destination and attracts visitors from all over the world each day. Traditionally the street acted as a barometer for the  economy nationwide, being the first retail location to experience a downturn and then the first to recover.

More recently, however, the profile is totally different. Whilst the country has been experiencing economic woes with frequent news of retailers’ businesses failing, all parts of Oxford Street are showing continued rental growth with demand exceeding supply.  Both east and west of Oxford Circus have seen positive movement in values, with a number of significant open market lettings.

Oxford Street (west) will prove to be remarkably strong over the next 12 months with values increasing from £550 Zone A and headline rents over £600 Zone A are being achieved on current transactions.  Thomas Davidson recently acted on behalf of Disney in their relocation to larger premises, where we successfully sold their lease to Prudential whom we understand are re-letting at a rental level which we predict will get close to £700 Zone A (Sept 2010).

Thomas Davidson have also recently negotiated one of the main flagship store rent reviews (Boots – Sedley Place), a 50,000 sq ft store with 4 levels of retailing.

Thomas Davidson continues to be at the forefront of the retail market helping shape the future of Oxford Street and have an unrivalled involvement having conducted some of the largest retail transactions seen in recent years. These include the letting of 18,000 sq ft to Next at the corner of Bond Street, the sale of the 40,000 sq ft  Waterstones store to Uniqlo at 311, the letting of 174 to Hennes which totalled 25,000 sq ft and in addition the letting of the adjacent 17,000 sq ft  unit again to Uniqlo.

Our latest ‘headline news’ to demonstrate this point has been on behalf of the Frogmore/Land Securities Partnership where we have just agreed to let 140,000 sq ft to Primark at the eastern end of the street at the junction with Tottenham Court Road which when completed will provide a landmark letting which will regenerate the entire area certainly affecting the immediate areas of Oxford Street and Tottenham Court Road.