Warren Street Office Space

Warren Street office space has evolved in many ways over the last century. Just as the London underground tube station went by a different name when it first opened in 1907, business accommodation is just as unrecognisable.

Warren Street is a thoroughfare in the London Borough of Camden that runs from Cleveland Street in the west to Tottenham Court Road in the east, within the northernmost section of Fitzrovia.

Warren Street tube station is at the eastern end of the street, adjoining Euston Road, Tottenham Court Road, and Warren Street.

It was named Euston Road but changed to its present name just one year later. Stations on the underground system had originally been built by rival companies, who named them in ways they felt most appropriate. However, when these companies came together, passengers were confused, as many stations had similar names.

Euston Square station, for instance, was just 0.1 miles away, so many stations on the system were renamed to create clarity for Londoners.

Warren Street was laid out in the late 18th century and is named after Admiral Sir Peter Warren, an Irish-born Royal Navy officer and politician who sat in the British House of Commons. His daughter and heiress Anne was the wife of Charles FitzRoy, 2nd Duke of Grafton, after whom Grafton Street in Dublin is named. Charles FitzRoy was responsible for developing activity in the area that would become Fitzrovia in the 18th century.

Originally an affluent residential neighbourhood, Warren Street today could be described as mixed-use, offering boutiques, coffee shops, restaurants, and office space.

For almost a century, from the opening of Warren Street tube station, the only way a business could occupy office space was to rent it on a traditional leasehold basis.

The lease was usually at least 25 years and was known as an institutional lease. The tenant could only vacate the premises before the expiration date if they broke the lease on prescribed dates, known as break dates, which were often spaced out at 5-year intervals or longer.

Renting an office involved employing a solicitor and a surveyor. The latter being paid a fee equivalent to a percentage of the first year’s rent, usually 10 per cent.

The lease document would contain the terms of the lease, or covenants, which outlined the obligations of both the landlord and the tenant.

Upon signing the lease, the tenant would be responsible for fitting out, decorating, and furnishing the blank canvas space. The tenant would also manage the utilities, clean, and maintain their demised space. The tenant would pay a contribution to the building’s service charge based on the amount of the space they rented, proportional to the building as a whole. If they rented space equivalent to 10 per cent of the whole building’s lettable floor area, they would pay 10 per cent of the service charge budget.

The service charge would cover the running and management of the building, with items included such as mechanical and engineering upkeep such as lifts, cleaning and decoration of common areas, utilities for the common areas, security staff, building and roof repairs and usually a contribution to a sinking fund that would be used for future maintenance.

The lease would most often contain rent review clauses that detailed the process by which the rent would be assessed periodically, usually every five years, to determine if the rent paid was in line with the market. At those times, the tenant would employ a surveyor to negotiate a new rental level with the landlord’s representative. This process would be expedited if the rent was inflation-linked; in this case, rent would automatically increase in line with inflation.

At the end of the lease term, or if the landlord or tenant broke the lease earlier, the tenant would ‘yield up’ the space and, through a process known as dilapidations, return the demised space to its original condition. The tenant could arrange for these works to be done or pay a negotiated fee to the landlord, and they would carry on the works.

Leasing office space in Warren Street in this way is still an available option, and it is still the preferred choice by many. It offers autonomy and allows the tenant to brand the space and manage it in their preferred way. Larger companies and organisations with company-wide property and facilities management functions particularly prefer it.

However, the office rental market has evolved considerably over the last few decades.

There is now a growing number of alternatives to conventional office space for rent in the form of flexible office space and workspace, collectively known as flex spaces.

These include managed office spaces, serviced private offices, and flexibly leased offices.

Managed offices are pre-cabled and ready to fit; the tenant is essentially provided with a blank canvas space. However, the tenant works with the landlord or managed office provider to fit out, furnish the space, and create a custom office with the tenant’s brand identity.

The bespoke offices can include private reception areas, hot-desking and co-working zones, executive office suites, meeting rooms, break-out spaces, lounges, libraries, kitchens, bathrooms, showers, and other elements.

The client can also create a tailored service package that utilises the services of the technical, hospitality, and business support teams. The landlord or managed office operator will then manage the space on the tenants’ behalf.

Managed offices in the Warren Street vicinity are available in a range of sizes and formats, including suites, clusters of suites, floors, multiple floors, and whole buildings. Some offer space for over 250 desks.

Private serviced offices are fully furnished, lockable office suites, clusters of suites, or floors. Clients of plug-and-play offices enjoy access to high-end communal amenities, including bookable meeting rooms, breakout spaces, fully stocked kitchens, focus booths, cafes, wellness amenities such as gyms, and other shared facilities.

As flexible office spaces and workspaces are let by licence or flexible lease, clients enjoy the agility to efficiently modify their footprint by downsizing or upsizing in line with changing business requirements. They can also extend or exit with relative ease compared to a leased space.

Flexible workspace and office rent is all-inclusive, covering broadband, heating, air conditioning, water, energy, professional cleaning, and other overheads that would be paid for and managed separately if leasing an office on conventional terms.

Additionally, premium office buildings near Warren Street offering managed offices and serviced office space are managed sustainably and ESG-consciously. These provide end-of-journey facilities for self-powered commuters, including bike storage, showers, lockers, and EV chargers.

These high-end buildings include brand-new Grade A office buildings equipped with ultramodern technologies and period buildings that have been renovated, refurbished, and retrofitted to provide contemporary workspaces with these state-of-the-art amenities.

However, the locale offers excellent public transport links from the aforementioned stations.

Euston, Kings Cross, and St Pancras mainline stations are also a short stroll away.