Office market Geneva

The office-space availability rate in the Geneva region edged upward last year and ended 2024 at 6.2% (end-2023: 6.1%). Office vacancies in the city’s central business district likewise increased, leaving a total of 40,400 m² of floor space unused (+7,100 m²). The availability rates in the CBD right bank (2.7%) and CBD left bank (4.7%) submarkets accordingly rose from the previous year (from 2.4% and 3.8%, respectively). Nevertheless, demand for office space in the city centre is just as robust as before.

The increase in supply owes mainly to office spaces in freshly renovated buildings and to the marketing of several smaller-scale office spaces in Geneva’s banking district. The prime rent price in Geneva continued to trend upward and stood at CHF 975 per m² per annum as of end-2024 (up 8% year-on-year). The activity seen lately points to further rent price growth in the prime office segment.

Most tenants searching for office space in Geneva’s CBD are faced with two major constraints. First, contiguous office spaces spanning over 1,000 m² or more than 250 m² on one storey are a scarce commodity. Second, there is a shortage of buildings in the CBD capable of meeting future-minded companies’ stringent sustainability criteria. Office-space seekers are thus forced to fall back on real estate offerings on the outskirts of the city.

The supply of available office space in the La Praille/Acacias/Lancy submarket has increased slightly in recent months because the Surville project (+2,300 m²) has been completed and some spaces in the Pont-Rouge district have become vacant. Over the course of 2024, though, the availability rate held steady on the whole at 5.0%. The ALTO building in Pont-Rouge landed a few companies in the financial sector as tenants.

Dynamic activity was also perceptible in the airport region, where the signing of a lease for 6,000 m² of office space in the LINK building in Blandonnet particularly stood out. The availability rate in this submarket accordingly contracted to 15.3% at present from 15.9% a year earlier. A vacancy rate consistently above 9% was registered in the Plan-les-Ouates submarket through the end of 2022, but it has pulled back and levelled off at slightly over 7% since last year.