Thinking beyond bricks and mortar to create compelling commercial destinations

As the media headlines suggest, we continue to see opposing narratives on the success – or lack thereof – of today’s office market. While some locations and buildings are thriving, others continue to face harsh headwinds, with many of their occupiers downsizing, relocating or consolidating their corporate real estate portfolios.

While I’ve only recently taken on the permanent role of head of office and investment at King’s Cross, I’ve spent much of the last year talking to our customers about what they like most about having a presence on the estate, how it has benefited their businesses and how it has improved talent acquisition and retention. Feedback is overwhelmingly positive, but what’s become apparent is that occupiers are under added pressure to make business-critical decisions about their commercial office spaces and are seeking to clearly define how their office space can support wider business objectives around innovation, sales, brand, talent attraction and retention and productivity.

Increasingly, we are seeing the occupier focus shift away from the commercial building asset itself – though of course this is still fundamental – towards the living, breathing ecosystem that exists outside it. What community is that business joining? How will its team’s productivity be affected by the surrounding environment? What will compel employees to stay, return and dwell in their office environment? What is it that will encourage employees to stay at that business, rather than take a role elsewhere?

As landlords and asset managers, we consider every one of these points on a day-to-day basis and adapt and evolve as required. This means working holistically to deliver value-add to our customers, not just in the quality of the physical asset but everything that happens outside of it.

We often hear terms like ‘the best and the rest’ or ‘the flight to quality’, usually relating to the quality of a building or the facilities inside. However, these terms now need to be expanded to include everything a commercial destination has to offer, from events and enlivenment initiatives and art and culture programmes to leisure and socialising opportunities. Importantly, they also need to include how a destination is able to support occupiers’ ESG ambitions. Carbon is an important element here, but so too is the opportunity to make an impact on the community through social value initiatives. A team or business will not flourish just because it has a pool table and a state-of-the-art heating and cooling system – though these things help!

To understand what our occupiers value most from a ‘place’ like King’s Cross, we undertake regular listening work so we can deliver on the things that have actual meaning for them and their people. Over the last 12 months, what has struck me most about King’s Cross is its ‘one team’ approach and its commitment to delivering added value to the workplace experience for our customers.

This experience includes an extraordinary programme of cultural events (150+ last year from elite cycling events to community saunas) and thought-provoking public art installations across the estate, alongside a diverse and exciting retail, F&B, leisure and wellbeing offer that creates a vibrant and thriving environment. People actually want to be at King’s Cross in their free time, not just because they have an office here.

As well as these estate-wide value-add initiatives, we have also made a commitment to reaching net zero carbon by 2035. While commitments like these are seen by many as a hygiene factor, it is our customer-centric approach to ESG that really sets King’s Cross apart. Through quarterly ESG Forums hosted by us and attended by our office occupiers, we discuss how we can work together to meet our collective net zero carbon and social value goals. On the environmental side, this includes helping our customers reduce their operational energy, implement new technologies and invest in building improvements to reduce emissions. On the social value front, this could mean helping them recruit new staff using our on-site recruitment service, KX Recruit, or facilitating volunteering opportunities through our partners such as Cook for Good.

As has become clear, the relationship between occupier and building owner has been turned on its head over the past five years and those that treat it as a partnership of equals working toward collective goals are the ones who will succeed. My aim now is to continue working alongside colleagues from all parts of the business to drive the workplace experience for our occupiers to support their wider business objectives, bring new and exciting businesses to the estate and help support our net zero carbon goals.

King’s Cross is delivering a range of new office spaces to lease throughout 2024 and beyond, including Western Transit Shed, Two Pancras Square and The Jellicoe, where we’ve entered into an innovative partnership with Fora to deliver a range of spaces from a single desk to a whole floor supported by incredible amenity, and the canal-side Building F1, our final development on the estate. As we continue to deliver flexible and purpose-built workspaces, it is vital that we keep building owner and occupier relationships top of mind. A commercial destination will only be as successful as the innovative community that surrounds it.