Growing popularity driving demand for business parks in Riyadh: Savills

Business parks are becoming more popular than traditional stand-alone buildings in Riyadh, according to a recent report by consultancy firm Savills.

The growing popularity of these business parks is supported by various factors such as more efficient office space layouts, generous car parking ratio for staff, food and beverage, as well as other community-based infrastructure.

In addition, companies also benefit from co-locating near similar business clusters to collaborate on new solutions and incubation of new technologies.

Currently, the majority of the business parks are located or coming up in the northeast of the city, closer to international air connections.

Higher occupancy level

According to the report, Q3 2019 occupancy levels in the capital across office developments stood at 85% for business parks, 82% stand-alone towers and 69% for mixed-use projects.

The consultancy further said that the rise of business parks is likely to attract various sectors in the next 3 years such as fintech, education, healthcare, entertainment, defense, transportation, and consulting which are related to initiatives outlined in the Saudi Vision 2030.

“Riyadh is transforming smartly and hence the importance of introducing the concept of business parks to meet evolving and new business needs,” said David O’Hara, Head of Saudi Arabia, Savills.

Co-working spaces on rise

Elsewhere, the growing young and educated population is driving the growth of co-working operators who currently occupy an average of 15% Grade A office space.

The share is slated to increase to 20% over the next 3 years, driven by existing global operators such as Regus, Spaces and Servcorp in addition to a number of local and regional operators, Savills noted.