Before you panic, don’t worry Landlords! We haven’t given up on the ground floor windows which make up a big part of Fitzrovia’s rich heritage.
We love Fitzrovia and London’s retail playground but for years we have felt its marketing can pigeonhole the type of operators taking the premises.
“Retail unit” never resonates with audiences and feels very RICS. Shops on the other hand, the mainstream lexicon of those searching, offers a very narrow reflection of who might operate from the property. The same goes for gallery and showrooms, which come with their own assumptions too.
This is truly a problem, especially with Class E planning opening the potential for a property to be used as a shop, showroom, eatery, office, gallery, medical, fitness studio or restaurant.
Over the years, this has led to agents (admittedly including ourselves) trying to advertise to the widest possible audience through long, wordy and uncreative captions which usually start with “suitable for” and ends with lists of property types, as shown above.
Moreover, does anyone truly believe Joe Public knows what a “Class E property” means???
LDG have had enough of this lack of creative flair, and we wanted to introduce a new label to our clients and applicants, with a better umbrella term for how we believe ground floor units should be marketed.
Storefronts.
Literally defined by dictionaries as the part of the building facing a street with window displays, we feel storefronts better reflects the modernisation of the UK Real Estate market and the wide usability of what we see at ground level in Central London.
This includes the office sector and we have had tremendous success leasing to businesses and brands who want brand exposure. This includes Cheerful Twentyfirst at New Cavendish Street and Dalebrook on Mortimer Street. Two fine examples of companies who sought out offices which specifically provided a storefront. This is without delving into growing markets in the medical and health sectors who also seek properties with direct street access and look to take advantage of the wider planning class.
Understanding this, it would be absurd to continue limiting our marketing and audience when storefronts, in our humble opinions, offers a one size fits all term perfectly.
LDG was built on differentiating itself to the rest of the market and clients work with us to ensure their properties stand out against the competition, to attract the best occupiers. Storefronts reflects that ethos.
