LONDON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 20, 2026--
Glasgow’s city centre recorded its highest quarterly office take-up since 2021 , according to data from CoStar, a global leading provider of online real estate marketplaces, information and analytics in the property markets.
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Take-up in the first three months of the year rose 85% quarter-on-quarter and 34% year-on-year. On a rolling four-quarter basis, occupier demand remained stable at around 600,000 sq. ft., up more than a third on the average between H2 2022 and H1 2024.
“Activity was driven by a return of larger deals, with three lettings above 20,000 sq. ft. signed in the city centre in Q1, more than in the whole of 2025,” said Grant Lonsdale, senior director of market analytics at CoStar Europe. “This pushed the average city centre deal size to around 6,000 sq. ft. in Q1 and 4,600 sq. ft. on a rolling annual basis, roughly 50% higher than two years earlier and the highest since Q3 2021.”
A total of 28 lettings below 5,000 sq. ft. were recorded in the City Core in Q1, taking the rolling four-quarter total to 133, nearing a record high.
Vacancy remains elevated at 12.4% across Glasgow and 15.8% in the city centre.
The full analysis can be found here.
For more information about the company and its products and services, please visit www.costargroup.com.
About CoStar Group
CoStar Group (NASDAQ: CSGP) is a global leader in commercial real estate information, analytics, online marketplaces, and 3D digital twin technology. Founded in 1986, CoStar Group is dedicated to digitizing the world’s real estate, empowering all people to discover properties, insights, and connections that improve their businesses and lives.
CoStar Group’s major brands include CoStar, a leading global provider of commercial real estate data, analytics, and news; LoopNet, the most trafficked commercial real estate marketplace; Apartments.com, the leading platform for apartment rentals; Homes.com, the fastest-growing residential real estate marketplace; and Domain, one of Australia’s leading property marketplaces. CoStar Group’s industry-leading brands also include Matterport, a leading spatial data company whose platform turns buildings into data to make every space more valuable and accessible; STR, a global leader in hospitality data and benchmarking; Ten-X, an online platform for commercial real estate auctions and negotiated bids; and OnTheMarket, a leading residential property portal in the United Kingdom.
CoStar Group’s websites attracted over 131 million average monthly unique visitors in the first quarter of 2026, serving clients around the world. Headquartered in Arlington, Virginia, CoStar Group is committed to transforming the real estate industry through innovative technology and comprehensive market intelligence. From time to time, we plan to utilize our corporate website as a channel of distribution for material company information. For more information, visit CoStarGroup.com.
Glasgow City Centre Office Leasing Hits 230,000 Sq. Ft. in Q1 2026
MALE, Maldives (AP) — Divers on Wednesday recovered the last two bodies of the four Italians who died deep inside an underwater cave in the Maldives last week.
The Italian divers had been exploring the cave in Vaavu Atoll last Thursday when they disappeared. The body of their Italian diving instructor was recovered outside the cave, and the Finnish recovery divers brought the bodies of two of the divers to the surface Tuesday.
Presidential spokesperson Mohameed Hussain Shareef said the last two bodies were recovered by three Finnish divers supported by the Maldives coastguard and police.
The bodies were taken to a morgue and were identified as Muriel Oddenino and Giorgia Sommacal. On Tuesday Monica Montefalcone and Federico Gualtieri were brought out, government spokesperson Ahmed Shaam said. The instructor, Gianluca Benedetti, was found near the mouth of the cave the day the divers disappeared.
“After that we will coordinate with the Italian government and start the procedure to repatriate the bodies,” Shareef said. He thanked the Finnish divers, praising them for their professionalism and leadership.
The four bodies had been located Monday at a depth of around 60 meters (200 feet), twice the legal depth for recreational diving in the island nation. The search had been temporarily suspended after a local military diver died during a perilous retrieval attempt.
The Maldives government said the recovery divers spotted the bodies in the cave’s innermost area. Shaam said the four bodies were found “pretty much together.”
The cave has been explored in the past by local experts and foreign divers, presidential spokesperson Shareef told The Associated Press earlier.
While the Italian divers had a permit, authorities didn’t know from their proposal the exact location of the cave they were exploring, and at least two of the dead were not on the list of researchers that had been submitted, “so we didn’t know they were part of the expedition,” Shareef said.
He described the conditions deep in the cave as “challenging” with difficult terrain, strong currents and poor visibility.
He said an alert had also been issued due to bad weather, and investigators must determine whether the divers took adequate precautions.
The Divers’ Alert Network Europe, which deployed the Finnish divers, described them as technical and cave divers with experience in search and recovery missions, including operations in “deep overhead environments, confined spaces and high-risk scenarios.”
The rescue team used closed-circuit rebreathers, a system that recycles exhaled breathing gas and removes carbon dioxide through a chemical scrubber, allowing for “significantly longer dives,” the organization said.
The cause of death of the Maldivian military diver was still under investigation, but colleagues have suggested he may have died from nitrogen narcosis or decompression at depth.
Francis reported from Colombo, Sri Lanka.
In this handout photo release by Maldives President Media Division, a Finnish diver gets ready to attempt to recover the bodies of two of the four Italians who died deep inside an underwater cave in an atoll earlier this month, at Alimathaa Island, in Vaavu Atoll, Maldives, Tuesday, May 19, 2026. (Maldives President Media Division via AP)
In this handout photo release by Maldives President Media Division, a Finnish diver, left, gets ready to attempt to recover the bodies of two of the four Italians who died deep inside an underwater cave in an atoll earlier this month, at Alimathaa Island, in Vaavu Atoll, Maldives, Tuesday, May 19, 2026. (Maldives President Media Division via AP)
