British Land Beats Canary Wharf Challenge to Keep EBRD at Broadgate

LONDON-British Land has convinced the European Bank for Reconstruction and development to stay in its existing 367,000-sf headquarters at One Exchange Square, Broadgate. The existing lease has a break option in 2006, and Canary Wharf had been lobbying hard for the bank to quit the City of London at that stage and move to a new purpose-built headquarters at 10 Churchill Place.

The bank had been occupying its Broadgate offices on a lease due to expire in 2016 at a passing rent of £18.975 million per annum. British Land is to grant the bank a new lease running from June 2003 to 2022, with a three and a half-year rent-free period. At the end of the rent free period there will be an upwards-only rent review, so British land will be guaranteed at least the previous passing rent.