The office vacancy rate at Amsterdam’s Zuidas business district has gone down to just 4.4%, compared with 7.2% at the end of 2015, according to research by property advisory company JLL.

The record low is due to increasing demand for Zuidas offices and the fact that several large complexes are currently undergoing renovation, JLL said.

Rents are rising in Zuidas but some prospective tenants are being forced to look at other nearby locations and new office development is necessary, spokesman Olaf Vogelaar told news agency ANP.

Elsewhere in Amsterdam, dozens of schemes are underway to convert redundant offices into residential property.

JLL said in March that a quarter of the office space in Amsterdam and Eindhoven would have been left empty if efforts had not been made to turn it into hotels and homes.

However, by redeveloping empty offices as homes, the vacancy rate has been cut to around 15%, in line with the national average.