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.

Two floors of the building are already sublet, and the bank will now look at its space requirements with a view to releasing more surplus space onto the market.