Hopes lift as rents for City offices rise

THE  take-up of office space in London rose 64 per cent in the third quarter of 2009 compared to the previous three months, signalling a recovery in the hard-hit British capital, property broker  Cushman & Wakefield said yesterday.There were 1.86m sq ft of new office space rented in the three months to end-September, compared with 1.13m sq ft in the second quarter and just 716,000 sq ft in the first three months of this year, it said in a report.“This improving demand, coupled with a constrained supply pipeline beyond next year, means that the bottom of the market for prime space has been reached,”  said James Young, head of Cushman’s City office.The third quarter take-up was below the 2.1m sq ft rented in the same period a year ago, before the collapse of Lehman Brothers triggered the financial crisis.The agency said it that benchmark rents for prime offices have already bottomed out.