Edwin Coe takes additional space at Lincoln’s Inn

Estates Gazette recently featured an interview with Edwin Coe’s Managing Partner, Nick Giles, regarding 11 Stone Buildings.  The article can be read in full below.

Edwin Coe has exchanged contracts to take 11,000 sq ft at No 11 Stone Buildings in Lincoln’s Inn, WC2.

The solicitors’ firm will pay more than £70 per sq ft on a 10-year lease for the highly sought-after space in the heart of what has traditionally been the spiritual home of barristers.

It will move in to the space next June, after a refurbishment is carried out by its landlord, the Honourable Society of Lincoln’s Inn.

Edwin Coe’s lease on the new space, previously occupied by the now dissolved chambers 11 Stone Buildings, represents a record open-market rent at the Inns.

However, higher rents in the low £70s have been achieved recently elsewhere from rent reviews and lease renewals, according to Michael Pain at Carter Jonas, who represented Edwin Coe on the expansion.

On nearby Lower Chancery Lane, brand new space can be acquired for rents of around £60-£65.

Nick Giles, Managing Partner at Edwin Coe, said the premium rents represented the “premium location”, which was important for the firm’s brand and staff retention.

He said: “It is one of our differentiating factors from our competitors who might be happier in a steel and glass block and somewhere else in Holborn.

I think clients identify us with certain buildings in the same way that we identify with Stone Buildings as a firm.”

Edwin Coe will also retain its premises at 1 & 2 Stone Buildings, where it has occupied 15,000 sq ft for the past 40 years.

Carter Jonas represented Edwin Coe; Savills acted for Lincoln’s Inn.