October 2010 Archives

In a strange case for a small newspaper distributor in Southwark, plans to redevelop their premises into a mixed use scheme now look to be on hold. They received planning consent back in 2008 for 9 private residential units and over 1,000sqm of office space to the south east of Southwark tube station and had plans to cash in on the central location and general gentrification of the area.

However a spanner has been put in to the works. A recent application to demolish the existing structure was refused last week; why? Well because since 2008, the King's Bench Conservation Area has been formed and this site falls within it. Planning officers recommended that consent to demolish the building be refused going along with planning policy, with councillors voting 3 to 2 in favour of the planning officers recommendation.

It is understood the applicant may appeal against the decision to clarify the planning policy around the situation. It does seem somewhat unfortunate that an outstanding permission can then become null and void due to changing policies, long after permission has been granted. Owner Margaret Lavell told the planning committee "It is not all about money and gain but to be absolute quality, this project is a culmination of 5 years really really hard work". Referring to her husband Tony, who was found dead 15 years ago this month, she added: "This is in memory of my husband whose life was taken within the building." (news article), (news article) 

Joe Lents has a $1.5 million mortgage. Joe Lents hasn't made a payment since 2002 and there doesn't seem to be much the mortgage company can do about it. This is a story of mortgage notes, lost-note affidavits, shortcuts taken with paperwork and mortgages bundled into securities by private banks.  Tampa Bay Online has the full story.  

The recently completed Strata building in Elephant and Castle rounds up my final instalment from the NLA 'Investing in Southwark' event. I was shown around the building by Robbie Turner of architects BFLS and Justin Black of developer Brookfield. No one on the tour dare mention the recent 'Carbuncle Cup' which the building won, but you couldn't help but feel the explanation of the design process around the development was at same time disputing the reasoning for the award.

The major reasoning for the Carbuncle Cup being awarded to the Strata building was for the "fact that it is the sole tall building in its locale". Robbie Turner reminded us that back when the building was first conceived Southwark Council had earmarked the site for a tall building. As well as this there were also two other nearby locations, the 360 London site and Eileen House which were and still are meant to see high rise buildings. Strata incidentally was going to be the site of the lowest rising tower but has since been the only scheme to be built out due to the others falling victim to the recession.

The 3 wind turbines installed within the roof of the building are also bemoaned by BD due to just 8% of the buildings energy being generated from them. Justin Black from Brookfield however stated that this really is an experiment and that engineering students from the nearby Southbank University were conducting an independent 2 year experiment on the turbines and would report back with the analysis. You have to remember the Strata building has become the first in the world to incorporate wind turbines within its structure. They must be applauded for this ingenuity in trying to push sustainability forward. The knowledge gained from this should hopefully benefit future projects where wind power is harnassed within buildings structures.

Another qualm from Building Design was that the building doesn't fit into its surroundings. However 170 acres of the surrounding area is due to be demolished and totally redeveloped in the near future with the provision of a number of tall buildings. It might not fit in to it's surroundings now but it may and hopefully will in the future. One Canada Square in Canary Wharf didn't really fit into the docklands landscape back in the early 90's, whereas now it has become the symbolic and iconic heart of the Canary Wharf estate. Architecture and planning is about looking into and trying to shape the future, Brookfield and BFLS shouldn't be discredited due to being the only one with balls to progress through a recession when others have fallen away. 

I'll leave you with some photos taken from the 42-storey penthouse apartment.

Views towards the City.

 Living space

Views on to the Heygate estate, soon to be demolished and redeveloped. 

I was shown around the Printworks development last week in Elephant and Castle as part of the NLA 'Investing in Southwark' event (see previous blog post). Developed by First Base and designed by Glenn Howells it provides 97 private units and 67 social units along with small business units on the ground floor level. I must say I was impressed with the scheme and what First Base has done here, just off the Walworth Road where practical completion has only just taken place. The developers were incidentally also responsible for Adelaide Wharf in Hackney, a project they won numerous awards for, most notably for the standard and fit-out of the social units and the fact they were dispersed within the development and not in one block. They have continued this theme here which provides for a more equal environment between tenants, which they must be commended for. However the standard of fit-out between both the private units and social units was however markedly different. Elliot Lipton of First Base though explained that this was no cost-cutting measure but simply the request of the social landlord in order to keep long-term operating costs to a minimum. Instead of granite worktops in the kitchens and nice carpets the social units got lino flooring and tuff hard wearing surfaces throughout. 

Sales for the scheme have been promising with 50 private units being sold to overseas investors. The UK launch took place a couple of weeks ago with 25 plots being released and reservations / sales occurring on 7 of them. An unprecedented demand has also been received for the shared ownership units, with over 500 people said to be on the waiting list. Prices for the flats range between £270,000 for a 1 bed and £560,000 for a 3 bed. The pictures below show the double height penthouses and large balconies they come with, these as I understand have not yet been released to the market.

I went along to another NLA event last Thursday called 'Investing in Southwark' held within the Tate Modern. The morning's talks were chaired by EG's old editor and fellow blogger Peter Bill with the afternoon given over to guided study tours of either London Bridge and Bankside, Elephant and Castle or Canada Water and Bermondsey Spa. I did the Elephant tour where we were shown around the recently completed Printworks on Amelia Street as well as the Strata building by the respective developers and architects. I'll do a separate post on those with this one just concentrating on what the main speakers had to say.

Those speaking included: 

Cllr Peter John, The leader of Southwark Council   

Richard Rawes, Director of Regeneration at Southwark Council    

James Sellar, CEO of Sellar                                           

Julian Hind, Head of leasing, sales and development at Farebrother        

Heather Juman, Area Manager, South East at the HCA                       

Rupert Robinson, Head of Regeneration at KPMG                            

Mark Boyes, Project Director for Elephant and Castle at Lend Lease             

Alex Williams, Director of Borough Partnersips at TfL                               

Nigel Webb, Head of Developments at British Land                       

Graham Morrison, Partner at Allies and Morrison                           

Cllr Fiona Colley, Cabinet Member for Regeneration at Southwark Council

Peter John, the recently elected leader of Southwark council started proceedings with his opening speech towards the largely developer and agent based audience as a 'come and invest' plea. Not that Southwark really needs it, over the last 10 years it's probably been one of the best performing London boroughs and has seen dramatic changes in recent history which have really revived it. The Tate Modern, globe theatre and jubilee line extension stick out.

Very interestingly the Southwark leader stated he 'unashamedly loves tall buildings' and his favourite place to visit was New York. They can be 'beautiful and practical' he went on to say and looks forward to working with Sellar for more tall buildings along St Thomas Street. To paraphrase Peter John "if you come to me with an iconic tall building in the right location you will have my support; Southwark is open for business and looking forward to change".

Richard Rawes the director of regeneration and neighbourhoods at Southwark council then discussed the challenges at the local level in more detail. The borough is the 26th most deprived borough in the country meaning it falls within the lowest 10%. It also has the largest council housing stock in London making it the 4th largest social landlord in the entire UK, so in terms of housing stock it has a lot to do.

He then went on to state what the council's targets are up to 2026.

- 10% in homes (an extra 24,000)

- 30% increase in office space (an extra 500,000sqm)

- 15% increase in jobs (an extra 32,000)

- 80,000sqm increase in shopping and leisure space.

James Sellar also spoke, the CEO of Sellar who are developing the Shard. He didn't give    too much away on the Three Houses plans along St Thomas Street though, only stating it will now probably be next year until we finally see any plans submitted. Most of his spiel was concentrated on the conception and development of the Shard, stating he expects up to 1million visitors a year to pass through the viewing gallery. There will also be 6 restaurants within the multi-use building in up to 5,761sqm of space and maybe up to 20 different office occupiers. As well as that the Shangri-la hotel is set to become their European flagship.

Rupert Robinson from KPMG possibly brought the most interesting news to developers in the room with a short analysis on the sovereign wealth funds that are looking to invest in London real estate. As well as being mentioned in Saturday's Estates Gazette (page 68-71), top of Rupert's list of ones to watch out for is Norwegian pension fund 'Norges Bank Investment Management' (NBIM). Described in EG as the 'newest kid on the block' they have value of assets of $479bn and a reported $20bn which they are actively looking to invest in real estate; London, as Rupert said should hopefully be benefitting from this soon. 

Another fascinating topic of conversation was between Alex Williams of TfL, Mark Boyes of Lend Lease and those representing the council. The argument centred around the £200m cost of renovating Elephant and Castle tube station with the foresight of the extra capacity generated from the redevelopment of the area in years to come. It already operates at 5 people per sq metre at peak times according to TfL, due to no escalator at the station. With absolutely no money in TfL's budget and neither side backing down and being able to afford to pay for it, Cllr Fiona Colley stated the only way was to find some ingenious engineering to reduce the £200m cost. Even Peter Bill did his best to get either side dishing the dirt on each other with Alex Williams of TfL saying "I don't think you will be getting me to start any negotiations in front of an audience of 200 property professionals". All were obviously extremely professional and wouldn't give much away, with this argument seeming as though it will run and run.

I went along to NLA's 'London's Future Landscape' event last week, a half day event with speakers and a question and answer session in the morning followed by a routemaster tour to Canary Wharf and the Olympic site in the afternoon. My colleague Jennifer Islip has actually beat me too it though, bloging about it a few days ago over on The Office Blog. If you want an overview of the day and what the speakers had to say on how they see London's future development then head over there for a read.

Instead of reiterating what's already been said I'll be concentrating on an interesting topic of conversation brought up by Colin Wilson, the senior manager of planning decisions at the GLA. He spoke about the Mayor's 'London Housing Design Guide' published in August, which sets a new benchmark for housing in the capital.

It's well known that London has some of the smallest homes in Europe as well as the western world, not least because Boris Johnson keeps on telling us about our 'hobbit homes' we live in. He's looking to reintroduce policy standards similar to that of Parker-Morris, the old minimum housing size guidelines which were abandoned by Margaret Thatcher.

The recently published London Housing Design Guide will have a staggered inception and will soon be a requirement for publicly-funded schemes, those on LDA owned land and those benefiting from HCA funding. It's a good start and with Colin Wilson going on to state that it's hoped these new standards will go on to be the norm covering all social housing, the real question is how likely is this and can it go even further? It's hoped that eventually Boris Johnson when updating the London Plan in 2012 will introduce the new standards set out in the design guide meaning they become policy for all housing, social and private. Some doubt he will have the expertise and persuasion to do this; if he does though he will leave a truly great lasting legacy to all of London.

I passed the Shard whilst site visiting on Wednesday. Here's what it currently looks like...

and this is what it will look like when finished.

The areas changed a bit, this photo was taken back in 1920.

London's famous landmark Savoy hotel http://www.the-savoy.com/ is set to open it's doors again after a massive and financially eye-watering £220 million refurbishment and two and a half years.

The hotel first opened in 1889 and was the capital's first luxury hotel but the years gradually took their toll and years of little investment saw the hotel lose its crown of the glory days and the grand hotels in Mayfair including Grosvenor House, Dorchester and Claridges became more favourable.

The history behind the hotel however can not be matched, the hotel was the first to have electricity, electric lifts known as 'ascending rooms', air-conditioning, private bathrooms and hot and cold running water. Not suprisingly the Savoy was able to attract a whole host of famous and influential guests from Winston Churchill, Coco Chanel and Oscar Wilde not to mention Monet and Whistler who both painted views of the Thames from their rooms.

 The scale and detail of the project has been astonishing with nearly 1000 craftsmen, artists and builders working on the project designed by Pierre Yves Rochons. Lets hope the sparkling new 268 bedroom hotel will be able to recreate the glory days as with an £800,000 cost of refurbishment per room and reporteldy going £100 million over budget it certainly hasn't come cheap.

Just in case you were wondering where this years Apprentice House is:

(For the 2011 house in Richmond go here)

Corner of Bedford Square and Montague Place...not far from our office. Link, link

Here's a building I pass every day on the way to work. It's on the corner of Gerrard Road and Lonsdale Road just on the outskirts of Barnes:

Back in 2002 it sold for around £1.7M it's on the market today through Marsh & Pearsons for £3.7M. I make that a compound interest rate of around 10%. Property's still not a bad investment.

Figures out for September have showed a massive slump in th UK housebuilding industry as the sector hits a 12 month low.

The latest Chartered Institute of Purchasing and Supply/Markit survey http://www.cips.org/  showed housebuilding activity in September fell below the crucial 50 point mark and hit 45.4 (a figure above 50 indicates growth and below 50 shows contraction).

The Bank of England's  http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/ latest credit condition survey also warned that lenders are toughening up on mortgage terms which doesn't bode well for housebuilders confidence as ultimately they can only build if there are people to buy. Furthermore the rate at which builders are winning new work has also slowed to a four month low and the industry is still cutting jobs as firms remain cautious.

Moreover these figures come days before a two day policy meeting by the Bank of England's rate setters where they are expected to keep interest rates at their present low of 0.5%.

Planning inspector John Papworth has gone against the recommendation of Southwark's planners and allowed this mixed use scheme close to Tower Bridge to go ahead. It was originally refused by Southwark's planning committee back in November of last year for being "incongruous and over dominant". However the planning inspector went against that idea and stated the scheme to be of a "high quality of design" that meets the aims of planning policy.

In allowing London & Quadrant's appeal the planning inspector went on to state that "the development would provide much-needed housing, and particularly family units, and would make efficient use of land, replacing unattractive buildings and uses that no longer sit well within this improving residential area,"

The scheme will provide 154 residential units as well as 3,680sqm of B1 office space. 

The building in question is of course The Shard correctly identified by Skysthelimit. Here's a CGI (ok word and some drawing tools) of what that view will eventually look like:

This is the view I get every morning cycling through Hyde Park, just on the western end of Rotten Row. Nothing unusual you might say...

...but look hard at the centre of the picture:

The round thing in the middle is The London Eye, not too difficult to spot. But what's the spike to the left of it?