DURING the course of the past five to 10 years, there has been a migration of occupiers relocating from the traditional core to newer, better-quality buildings with large floorplates located in the northern end of the city, thus creating a new central business district (CBD).

With the exception of Prince’s Dock, much of the new development and speculative grade A refurbishment schemes have been focused in and around the Old Hall Street area.

There has been a steady stream of occupiers who have vacated buildings in the traditional core to relocate to newer, more efficient buildings, leaving behind listed buildings which have not been refurbished and are difficult to adapt.

These occupiers have included Hill Dickinson, DWF, Allied Irish Bank, RBS, The UK Passport Agency and Lloyds Banking Group.

Castle Street, which was once the prime business address in the city, has now effectively become the physical link between the new CBD and the retail core.

The next wave of refurbishment schemes should be focused on refurbishing and adapting those buildings that have recently been vacated and that have large voids such as India Buildings and Queens Buildings, in an attempt to try to encourage occupiers to consider buildings in the traditional core.

While these types of refurbishment schemes may be difficult to finance in the short term, it will also be important to provide occupiers with a range of different accommodation.

Some of the biggest challenges landlords face to promote the refurbishment of these buildings is not only the availability of funding but the cost of adapting these buildings to meet modern standards and the lack of rental growth.

There has also been a decrease in demand, which is partially down to a number of occupiers actually re-gearing or renegotiating their leases.

So it has become difficult to prise occupiers away from their existing buildings, especially given the competitive terms that are on offer from existing landlords. This lack of demand, coupled with the other challengers mentioned previously, has resulted in the majority of landlords adopting a cautious approach to speculative refurbishment.

If these buildings are not refurbished, it is likely that occupiers of larger space will become more footloose due to the lack of availability of good quality refurbished product within the traditional core.

This may result in the continued migration to the new CBD, but will also see a greater divide in terms of building quality between the new and the traditional CBD.