Media agency Mindshare has become the first official tenant of the new central London office space development building Central Saint Giles, the vibrantly coloured building designed by Renzo Piano. Central Saint Giles consists of nine cafes and restaurants - located around a central courtyard piazza - as well as fifty three reasonably priced homes, fifty six private apartments and no less than thirty seven thousand square metres of Grade A office space.
Mindshare will occupy about seven thousand two hundred and fifty square metres (seventy eight thousand square feet) of that executive office space as a result of the contracts it signed with Legal & General Property and Mitsubishi Estate Company UK last week. Actual specific details of the rental agreement signed were not disclosed to the general public. Mindshare, a media agency which is itself a subsidiary of worldwide marketing giant WPP, will occupy that space across the seventh and eighth floors of the building. Staff from the agency will also be granted access to a roof terrace that offers panoramic views across the Southbank and the Houses of Parliament. Mindshare should be moving from its current traditional London office space, located in the Strand, into the garish but ecologically advanced Central Saint Giles property sometime within the next six months. Property Week was the first to predict that the deal would eventuate between the two, all the way back in May.
"This is a significant milestone for the Central Saint Giles Partnership," says the head of development at Legal & General Property, Simon Wilkes. "It is very pleasing that our first occupier, Mindshare, has a reputation for being creative, innovative, forward thinking and market leading, given that these are the same attributes ascribed to our development." Likewise, Masami Amano, the managing director of Mitsubishi Estate Company UK, added "Central Saint Giles is one of London's great buildings and we are delighted Mindshare has chosen the building for its headquarters. Since the launch of Central Saint Giles in May, we have seen a surge in interest from potential occupiers and we expect to be able to report further office lettings shortly." Mindshare offered no immediate comment on the move.
James Andrew International was advising for Mindshare on the rental deal, with Cushman & Wakefield and Jones Lang LaSalle acting for Central Saint Giles. Another company, Specific Media, is believed to be in the midst of negotiations with an aim to moving into executive office space on the tenth floor of the commercial property.
Central Saint Giles has been described as an example of excellence in office led, mixed use development projects. It was also world renowned Italian architect's Renzo Piano's first designed building in the United Kingdom, Piano also being the man behind the design of the Shard of Glass, the triangular skyscraper consisting of no less than seventy two floors, which is currently under construction at London Bridge. Piano previously worked with Lord Richard Rogers to design the now iconic Pompidou Centre in Paris.
