Development starts slowing across Europe

The amount of office development activity in most European cities continues to fall as existing schemes are completed and more prospective projects are pushed back, or shelved until market conditions improve. A common factor appears to be that the flow of development finance has been shut off much more quickly in this cycle than was the case in the previous development cycle in the late 80s and early 90s.

It now appears that 2001 will be the peak of the current cycle in terms of development. This is primarily because the development cycle in Ile de France, the biggest European office market, peaked in that year. Development completions in London, Barcelona and Amsterdam are expected to at their highest in 2002, with development completions in Frankfurt not peaking until 2003. However, overall development completions will remain above the long-term average in both 2002 and 2003, before slowing sharply from 2004 onwards.

(source: CB Hillier Parker)

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