Japanese global trading group Mitsui & Co has taken close to 50,000 square feet on a lease assignment from Numis at 40 Gresham Street in the City of London.
Mitsui is taking floors seven to nine of the building at a circa £80 per square foot. It is based at 1 St Martin's Le Grand in the City. The marking of the space and assignment follows Deutsche Bank's take over of investment bank Numis in 2023.
Gresham St Paul’s comprises 170,000 square feet of offices over nine floors, with large terraces on the top three floors, at the heart of the financial centre and close to St Paul’s Cathedral.
CBRE advised on the transaction.
Swiss investment foundation AFIAA and Stanhope carried out a Wilkinson Eyre-designed redevelopment that reuses the existing structure. The building has a WiredScore Platinum rating, Wi-Fi enabled café, reception and business lounge, 254 bike and locker spaces with changing and shower facilities.
It is the first development project has AFIAA partnered with Stanhope on; Stanhope was the developer of the original building on the site. Construction started in March 2019 at the former headquarters of Schroders to modernise and upgrade the building.
Cushman & Wakefield and RX advise Stanhope and AFIAA.
According to Savills, third quarter take-up in the City of London reached 1.2 million square feet across 84 deals, slightly down from last quarter, and largely due to no transactions above 100,000 square feet completing. The largest transaction was law firm Bristows' 70,000-square-foot prelet of floors four to seven of Bow Bells House, in a transaction revealed by CoStar News.
Other larger transactions Savills flagged in the quarter are Vallist taking 31,527 square feet at Finlaison House, 15-17 Furnival Street, and LADbible taking 31,000 square feet at Tishman Speyer's 1 Angel Square.
Savills says year-to-date take-up is 4.3 million square feet, up 17% on the five-year average and in line with the 10-year average. It says with under-offers approaching 2 million square feet – 7% above the long-term average – its expects total take-up for 2025 to exceed both the five- and 10-year averages.