St Mungo's

Review of office portfolio and evaluation of strategic options

Key points

• Welfare Health and Safety, due to the often short term nature of the office portfolio, needed to be improved
• The offices, with a few notable exceptions, were badly decorated and fitted out and would be "condemned" by most occupiers
• Whilst superficially the space was "cheap", the extremely low utilisation of space means that the cost per occupier was high
• The short term nature and very poor condition of a number of properties often meant that significant capital was invested for only short lease periods
• Due to the nature of the buildings it was immensely difficult to accurately budget maintenance costs

Project details
Colliers CRE were asked to review St Mungos office portfolio with a view to understanding how it supports St Mungo’s currently and evaluating strategic options for the future. St Mungo’s is a charity for the homeless and operates projects in 12 London Boroughs with office accommodation in seven of them. Increasingly St Mungo’s recognised that they are competing for a scarcer human resource and that a reasonable working environment is essential to employing new staff and creating the right impression with clients who fund projects. It was noted that the accommodation should give the impression of an efficient but thrifty organisation.

Information was collated in a number of ways including site visits, cost and space evaluation of information retained by St Mungo’s and interviews with a range of staff to understand how they operated and how they needed to be supported.

A number of options were considered and evaluated on the basis of cost, risk and ability to meet business need. This option analysis was presented to a St Mungo’s workshop and was used to help them to decide their preferred strategy to best meet their business needs. Based on this option evaluation it was agreed to do a phased disposal of the existing estate replacing with a smaller number of modern, legally compliant properties.

Colliers CRE have recently helped in the implementation process acquiring new offices and supporting the move process. In September 2004 the first people moved into their new premises and their facilities manager was very pleased with the very positive response from the occupiers of the building.

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