Savills, alongside investment bank Lazard, has been jointly appointed by London-listed REIT Landsec to sell the freehold of its one-acre island site at London’s famous Piccadilly Circus, which includes newly developed offices, prime retail units and the land that underpins the famed Piccadilly Lights, for a guide price of GBP450 million ($764.39 million).
This would currently make it the largest single sale in the West End of London since 2022.
The site, which is known as Lucent, comprises 188,000 sq ft of mixed-use space, of which the offices make up 126,000 sq ft. The office space includes Landsec’s flexible office brand MYO, and Verition Fund Management, which leased the third floor in 2024.
The retail and leisure element includes four flagship stores totalling 58,000 sq ft, on Regent Street and Shaftesbury Avenue, which are leased to tenants including Boots and Lindt.
The sale will include the freehold that underpins Piccadilly Lights, the largest advertising screen in Western Europe, with Landsec continuing to operate the digital infrastructure on a new 250-year leasehold and retaining 95% of its net operating income.
Paul Cockburn, director in the Central London Investment team at Savills, says: “This Picadilly Circus site is world-renowned and represents an incredibly rare opportunity to buy not just a high-profile freehold asset in London’s West End, but also a high-quality new development completed only two years ago.”
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He adds: “This is a highly successful scheme that was largely pre-let and so is now leased at below-market rents. With limited risk exposure and exciting growth characteristics, we expect it to appeal to investors across the globe.”
Piccadilly Circus is a road junction in London’s West End, located near tourist hotspots and shopping and theatre districts. It was built in 1819 to connect Regent Street to Piccadilly.
Landsec, the UK’s largest commercial property development and investment company, has owned the building since the 1970s.
The mixed-use site is expected to appeal to investors across the globe. According to Savills, overseas investors have been responsible for more than 75% of all mixed-use investment in Central London since 2018.
