Woodside Petroleum has taken out space in two CBD buildings to house 160 of its staff, just two years after moving in to its purpose-built St Georges Terrace tower.
Woodside Petroleum has taken out space in two CBD buildings to house 160 of its staff, just two years after moving in to its purpose-built St Georges Terrace tower.
A Woodside representative last week confirmed to WA Business News that Woodside had taken a level in the neighbouring QV1 building to accommodate 104 people, and a level in Allendale Square for 60 people.
The ongoing commodities boom has led to a significant growth in activity for many resource companies, some of which, Woodside included, have been caught off guard by the tightly held nature of the office leasing market.
The spokesperson confirmed both spaces were for specific project work not anticipated at the time of the construction of the resource company’s new headquarters.
“Ideally we would like to have everyone in one building, but we just didn’t anticipate this level of work, so have had to take out additional tenancies,” the spokesperson said.
Completed in early 2004, the $250 million, 26-storey Woodside building is mostly occupied by the resource giant, with accounting firm Deloitte and law firm Coors Chambers Westgarth the other office tenants, both signed to 10-year leases.
When Woodside left its old premises at 1 Adelaide Terrace, the company had a lease to 2008. This was taken over by Baulderstone Hornibrook as a condition it entered into when it won the contract to build Woodside’s new headquarters.
At the time, 1 Adelaide Terrace was seen as a major blight on the office leasing landscape. Over the past year, however, the building has become fully tenanted.
And if Woodside needs more space, it may be forced to look outside of the CBD, with recently released Property Council vacancy rates showing a record low vacancy of 5.8 per cent.
Even with this tight vacancy rate, most of the vacancy is at B- and C-grade level buildings, with premium vacancy at 0.8 per cent, and the A-grade vacancy level at 3.7 per cent.
The only premium space available is 2,012 square metres in Central Park.
Releasing the figures earlier this month, Property Council executive director Joe Lenzo said major drivers in the marketplace continued to be resource companies and service providers to the resources industry.
“BHP Billiton, Rio Tinto, Woodside, Chevron and Clough all took up new office space in the last six months,” Mr Lenzo said.
Both Rio Tinto and Chevron are tipped as potential anchor tenants for a new office development in the CBD, with Rio seeking between 12,000 and 18,000 square metres, while Chevron is understood to be coming to the market soon with space needs of anywhere between 17,000 and 36,000 square metres.
Industry sources have told WA Business News that Rio Tinto subsidiary Hammersley is close to signing on to Multiplex and Hawaiian Management’s proposed Bishops See development, located at the western end of St Georges Terrace.
