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| Property |
 Back in 2000, when Amnesty International decided it was high time it sorted out its gloomy, leaky 1930s headquarters building in Easton Street, east London, the options were simple enough: cash in its chips (it owned the freehold of the property) and move to a new location or completely refurbish what it already had.It chose the refurbishment route, with architectural and interior fit-out firm Artillery completing a £11.5 million project last summer that included, among other features, a new roof garden, energy-efficient lighting that has helped to contribute to a 25 per cent reduction in its fuel bill and, crucially, space for more than double the number of employees. “The key element was that [Amnesty] was a very, very cellular organisation and they wanted something much more open-plan,” explains Artillery’s managing director David Back. “It was a very well thought-through scheme. Initially there was some reluctance by some people to give up their offices but people have now embraced it.” Expect to see more decisions like this. While in Amnesty’s case the motivation for refurbishment predated the current downturn, understandably the credit crunch and the resulting tougher economic picture are prompting firms facing a break in or expiry of their lease, for example, to look long and hard at the option of refurbishing existing space rather than moving to new premises. “It is certainly an up-and-coming trend,” says Back. “We have been doing this type of work for a long time and we have been noticing over the past 12 to 18 months that clients are really looking at better ways of using existing space.” What’s more, with companies freezing hiring or putting expansion plans on hold, this is a trend set to continue, despite the slump in the commercial property market having improved office supply, argues Anthony Brown, sales and marketing director at refurbishment and fit-out specialists Overbury. “What we tend to notice is that when GDP contracts or grows at a slower rate the market starts to shift from fit-out to refurbishment,” he says. Beyond the cost savings and lower disruption (sometimes, but not always) of a refurbishment, a well-planned project can bring other benefits, too. The British Council for Offices has calculated that improving existing commercial office space can increase productivity levels by a quarter, reduce absenteeism, help staff retention and encourage better communication. David Back points to how a good refurbishment can vastly improve an organisation’s provision of meeting space, for example. “Meeting rooms are often planned without any analysis of what they are going to be used for,” he says. “Often it is just two or three people rather than the eight or so it is laid out for.” Furthermore, warns Overbury’s Anthony Brown, one of the most common pitfalls companies fall into is simply not having left enough time to properly plan their office space and how it can best be configured. “You need to look carefully at the sequencing and logistics of the work,” he says. “It might, for example, be easier to move the people on one floor to a serviced office for a month rather than sending workers in to work around them.” If you are reducing desk areas there needs to be a quid pro quo, stresses David Back – for instance, offering individuals better space to spill out into, whether personal lockers or break-out areas. “For one client recently, just by reducing the desk size we fitted in 15 per cent more people. Of course, the furniture companies are rubbing their hands with glee but, at the end of the day, the cost of doing that was nothing like what the cost of taking on 15 per cent more floor area would have been,” says Back. At the moment, says Brown, Overbury’s work is split around 65/35 in favour of refurbishment, a complete reversal of what it was in 2003. “In think in the medium term, and certainly for the next six to 12 months, we are going to see refurbishment holding up. By around 2010/12 we should see a swing back in the opposite direction,” he predicts. “It is a very exciting challenge to try to get people to use their space better,” agrees Artillery’s Back. “Moving is so wasteful, it is much better to reconfigure what you already have.” |
