In December 2000, landlords Grosvenor Estates raised the rent from £43 per square foot to £65 – a rise of 51 per cent. A new proposal aims to raise that to £95 – a rate already agreed by one new tenant who was unaware of what others were paying – representing a total rise of just over 120 per cent from the £43 base.
As the Pimlico Road Association point out in their submission to Grosvenor Estates, this latest rise is being proposed against a backdrop of significant falls in West End retail space rentals of 20-25 per cent in the past year.
“If rents get too high and only larger chain store shops move in, the character of the area will be lost,” the association argue. “As shops then move out as fashion changes, the rents would then be too high for smaller independent businesses to return.”
The proposed uplift, put to the association at a meeting with Grosvenor Estates in February, “would certainly cause several businesses to close”, they said.
But they are not without hope. They say the February meeting was constructive and they have learnt that Grosvenor have just settled at £65 per square foot with the local supermarket.
Such is the level of their concern that the London board for the landlords have agreed to put the traders’ objections to the main board of Grosvenor Estates, who are due to meet on April 30.
Pimlico Road dealers fight off rent hike of 120 per cent in two years
THE stock market may be going down and tourists numbers dropping thanks to foreign conflict, but in Pimlico Road, antiques dealers are facing the biggest threat from their second huge rent hike in just over two years.
