UKREiiF Report: Repurposing commercial buildings for long-term value
- Karen Fletcher
- May 28
- 6 min read
The SectorScope editor Karen Fletcher reports on a panel discussion at UKREiiF 2025 on how the industry is responding to changing conditions across the built environment by repurposing buildings for long-term value.
The UK’s built environment currently faces several simultaneous challenges, from environmental and legislative to financial and user-driven. A UKREiiF 2025 panel discussion, hosted by Cushman & Wakefield, considered how the construction and property industry can rethink buildings, and repurpose them for long-term value in the face of significant market shifts.
Chairing the panel, Daryl Perry, Head of UK Research & Insight at global property consultant Cushman & Wakefield, highlighted the scale of just one element, legislation: “Based on our analysis, 83% of the commercial built environment would be impacted by the proposed government changes to Minimum Energy Efficiency Standards.”
The panel
Daryl Perry (Chair) | Head of UK Research & Insight, Cushman & Wakefield |
Esther Jourdan | Business Development Lead UKME, WiredScore |
Fred Clifford | Partner - Development & Advisory, Cushman & Wakefield |
Imogen Thompson | Executive Director, Urban Land Institute |
Richard Harrison | Principal, Gensler |
Rob Valentine | Regional Director for the West Midlands, Bruntwood SciTech |
He noted that with the current proposed trajectory of a minimum EPC requirement of C by 2027 and B by 2030, around 32,000 commercial buildings will be drawn into upgrades. He noted: “The total cost of that would be around £71 billion, making an average of £184,999 per building, although obviously some would require much more expenditure than that.”
Occupier behaviour change is another area requiring response from building owners and operators. Perry highlighted: “We have seen pre- and post-pandemic changes in office space requirements. There is still strong demand in city centres, but other areas have dropped off. Occupiers are taking less space, but of better quality.
“In the London market rental costs for the right buildings have increased significantly, with some tenants paying 93% more per square foot than pre-pandemic. This equates to £115 million more in rent for central London commercial landlords.”
Esther Jourdan, Business Development Lead UKME at WiredScore, which assesses and certifies building digital infrastructures, agreed with the flight to quality trend: “Occupiers are looking for best-in-class, tech-led space. Landlords have to be creative to stand out. Tech has become a game changer, helping to improve flexibility of spaces. It also allows landlords to understand how tenants use the buildings.”
Imogen Thompson, Executive Director of the Urban Land Institute, which focuses on the future of the built environment and its impact on communities, also noted the growing influence of end-users on buildings: “It’s a shift from ‘asset’ to ‘experience’. Occupiers are driving the deliverables. They are not ‘tenants’ or ‘leaseholders’, but customers. Landlords must meet their wants, as well as their needs.”
Richard Harrison, Principal at global architecture and planning firm Gensler, agreed that many factors should be making building owners look to the future of their assets. However, he noted: “These drivers suggest that we should be in a redevelopment boom, but we’re not.”
The fact is that the redevelopment market may be on a slow burn because it comes with its own challenges, particularly the financial issues of ensuring that the project will attract the right tenants.
Joint research carried out by Cushman & Wakefield and Gensler examined the feasibility of changing a modelled typical 1990s office building, placing it in various sites around the UK. They tested the impact of transforming the building from office to hotel, residential, healthcare or life science.
Richard Harrison highlighted some of the main points in the research: “There is a strong driver for office-to-residential repurposing, because the market is there. Office to healthcare can also be a good option particularly outside of London. So, there are options there but you have to look carefully at what the local market will support and what the demand is.”
Fred Clifford, Partner Development & Advisory at Cushman & Wakefield agreed that investment in refurbishment needs careful consideration: “In our role, we come into contact with assets that are not fulfilling their potential. All refurbishment comes with a cost, and the investment in refurbishment needs to pay. But the viability of rent you would need to gain is not always there. For example, office-to-residential seems like a good move in today’s market, but it doesn’t always make sense.”
Rob Valentine, Regional Director for the West Midlands at specialist technology and innovation developer Bruntwood SciTech agreed with the need to focus carefully on repurposing for market needs: “We have been doing this for a long time. We acquire existing assets to redevelop for what the market wants. We are hotelifying the commercial office experience. We’re adding biophilic elements and even using scents to create a welcoming experience. But we are also rethinking harder-to-reach spaces such as the roof or car parking to optimise those.”
The panel agreed that current Change of Use regulations are making the redevelopment of existing office space more challenging, even as government increasingly focuses on issues such as the embodied carbon in existing buildings.
One of the key points the panel also agreed on is that when it comes to transitioning or updating an existing office building, thinking about how it interacts with the local community is now a critical issue. This has seen the rise of a more ‘mixed use’ approach to repurposing projects.
Richard Harrison pointed out: “It’s about creating something authentic. Mixed use adds dynamism to the place. A building is not an island and we need to ask how it fits within the wider community.”
Imogen Thompson agreed and highlighted benefits on both sides of that approach: “We used to say in property it’s location, location, location that’s key. Now, it’s about creating that location. People are looking for vibrant, central hubs. A building has to be where people want to be.”
Esther Jourdan pointed out that technology can help to smooth the barriers that traditionally keep locals ‘outside’ of a building: “Technology can remove the friction points that we are used to when entering a building – the reception desk, security gates, issued badges. If someone is coming in to the building to use the gym, for example, their entry can be automatic so they don’t feel like ‘outsiders’ in the space.”
Rob Valentine agreed that creating a sense of place can work even across buildings: “We work in cities and our buildings will effectively become a cluster that customers can use. For example, making use of the gym in one, the café in another. When we bring in amenity retailers to those buildings, we do that to add value not just for the sake of retail rent.”
He added that the current office market is challenging, but as a developer he is thinking about how to increase the value of existing estate: “We revisit our buildings on a three-year basis now. Pre-Covid, we used to do that every ten years - the market is more competitive now. But the opportunities are there.”
Imogen Thompson sees the property development and operation market changing even more fundamentally: “We have benefitted from cheap debt and a short-term view of how we repay value. Now, that’s changing, we operate in a long-term industry. We have been lucky for the last two decades, but now the reality for investors is much more long term.”
The long-term view of property as an investment vehicle matches the increasing concern about the embodied carbon of our existing buildings, as well as the need to prepare the built environment for climate change - something that the Climate Change Committee has highlighted as a critical risk for the UK.
Rob Valentine pointed out that repurposing buildings may be challenging but has a strong business benefit: “If you get this right, you can create a really great product, sometimes gaining better rents than a new-build. The benefit of refurbishment is that you can achieve it for less time and often less cost than a new-build.”
But the switch in how we value buildings goes beyond the financial. As Imogen Thompson concluded: “For so long, it’s been about pound signs. Now, we are talking about people; how a developer can curate their operational space whether it’s residential or office. People, and their perceived value, are key for the industry.”
