Low-grade office space faces vacancy pressure as tenants upgrade to new buildings

Here are the soon-to-be vacated spots.

According to Colliers International, some vacancy pressure may be felt in buildings of lower grades when tenants carry out their planned upgrades to the newer buildings. For example, the Singapore Exchange (SGX) will begin to move about 70% of their employees to The Metropolis Tower 2 in the City Fringe micro-market from mid-April this year while Neptune Orient Lines (NOL) will also start moving its headquarters to The Metropolis Tower 1 in May 2014.

As a result, SGX will relinquish over 110,000 sq ft at SGX Centre in the Shenton Way/Tanjong Pagar micro-market from June 2014 while Fragrance Group, which bought the NOL Building at 456 Alexandra Road in 2012, will be putting more than 200,000 sq ft of space back into the market for lease from July 2014 after NOL completes the move. Consequently, average rental rategrowth for Grade B space could be limited to 10% in 2014.