Gresham Street Office Space

Renting office space on Gresham Street means positioning your business in a location that is highly relevant to the City of London.

The street in the EC2 postcode district was created in 1845 and named after Sir Thomas Gresham, a man who was partly responsible for making the City the financial powerhouse it is today.

Born in 1519 into a merchant family, he was the son of Sir Richard Gresham, a leading merchant mercer and Lord Mayor of London, who King Henry VIII knighted for negotiating favourable loans with foreign merchants.

Sir Thomas became known as the father of English banking. As a merchant and financier, he acted on behalf of King Edward VI and Edward’s half-sisters, queens Mary I and Elizabeth I.

In 1543, he was admitted into the Mercers’ Company as a liveryman, and later that year, he left England for the Low Countries, basing himself in Antwerp, where he worked as a merchant whilst acting in various matters as agent for King Henry VIII.

In 1551, during a financial crisis in England, Sir Thomas Gresham was called upon for his advice and, through various methods, raised the value of the pound on the Antwerp Bourse and subsequently “rescued the pound” for which he was rewarded in various ways by King Edward VI.

After her accession in 1553, Queen Mary retained his services until the end of her reign in 1558. During this time, in addition to his salary of twenty shillings per year, he received grants of church lands to the yearly value of 200 pounds.

Under Queen Elizabeth’s reign (1558–1603), in addition to continuing as financial agent of the Crown, Gresham acted as Ambassador Plenipotentiary to the Court of Duchess Margaret of Parma, Governor of the Netherlands, and was appointed a Knight Bachelor in 1559.

These enterprises in England and Europe made him one of the richest men of his generation.

Sir Thomas Gresham was also responsible for establishing the Royal Exchange in 1565. When he was appointed to create a centre of commerce for the city, the City of London Corporation and the Worshipful Company of Mercers provided the site.

This was London’s first purpose-built centre for trading stocks, modelled on the Bourse in Antwerp, the world’s oldest financial exchange.

Gresham Street runs from the junction of Lothbury, Old Jewry and Coleman Street at its eastern end to St. Martin’s Le Grand in the west and sits in the Ward of Cheap. Fittingly, “Cheap” is the archaic word that means Market.

Today, high-profile occupiers from a wide range of sectors choose to position themselves on Gresham Street such as commercial real estate agents, Avison Young, financial services and professional services provider, Evelyn Partners, international banking and wealth management group, Investec, law firms, Curtis, Mallet-Prevost, Colt & Mosle LLP, Debevoise & Plimpton, and Fragomen LLP, and the UK’s largest retail and commercial financial services provider, Lloyds Banking Group.

Businesses seeking office space on Gresham Street can choose from a broad range of buildings, such as 10 Gresham Street, to rent space on a traditional leased basis.

Designed by Foster + Partners and completed in 2005, the 145,000-square-foot low-rise building was sympathetically laid out on an essentially mediaeval street plan while being sensitive to nearby Guildhall and the two nineteenth-century livery halls—Wax Chandlers Hall and Goldsmiths Hall.

The building recently underwent a full refurbishment to create office space for the 2020s and beyond. It offers club-like end-of-trip facilities such as cycle spaces, lockers, and showers, amenities such as coffee bars, and features such as rooftop terraces.

To suit the demands of ESG-considered tenants, the low-carbon building has achieved several sustainable accolades and awards, such as BREEAM Outstanding, WELL Platinum, AirRated Platinum, WiredScore Platinum, SmartScore Platinum, and ActiveScore Platinum. The Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) has also assessed it to have 250 kg CO2 / m2 of embodied carbon, which is 67% below the RIBA 2030 Carbon Target.

There is also a broad range of flexible office space and workspace solutions available on and near Gresham Street, which are offered by landlords, luxury office providers, and workspace operators, such as the office space at 85 Gresham Street by Argyll.

The striking building offers high-end private serviced offices, managed office suites and co-working solutions with first-class amenities and services such as business lounge and concierge support.

The ‘Flex Space’ solutions on Gresham Street have grown in popularity in recent times because they offer short-term commitments from occupiers, are available on flexible licences, so allow occupiers to change their footprint in line with changing business needs, and offer all-inclusive rental pricing that covers items such as utilities, IT, cleaning, furnishings, and reception services.