December 2010 Archives

This blog will now be taking a festive break. In the mean time I'll leave you with these images showing how Sellar have brightened up the Shard in the evenings by illuminating a giant Christmas tree into its glass facade. Thanks for these go to inhabit.com and Eddie Boyd from flicker.

 See you in the New Year.                                                                   Image © Eddie Boyd

Interesting news now of a development site in Docklands which a Turkish real estate company is proposing. This is the site, to the south of Marsh Wall and the recently completed 'Landmark'. The site is bounded by Cuba Street, Tobago Street & Manilla Street. 

This very blog (link) commented on the sites demolition and subsequent scoping opinion submitted back in April 2009. Now it emerges that this looks set to be the first overseas investment from a Turkish real estate company called Agaoglu. They've released this image below showing what they propose. Still no planning application though, with details still limited. Notice the curves though, this would be a first for the Wharf.

As per the scoping opinion the development would consist of roughly 390 residential units and between 200-220 hotel bed space in two buildings with heights of 124m and 170m. Like I said details are still very sketchy but the render at least would suggest something quite different to what the docklands currently has on offer.

In the last blog about the disappearance of the charging stallions and chariot from the facade of Caesar's Nightclub on Streatham Hill I wrote:

"My theory/hope is that the ODA have bought it and it'll stand proudly above the entrance to the Olympic stadium. I lack the necessary photo-shopping skills to knock up a CGI of what it may look like so you'll just have to use your imagination."

I still lack the necessary photo-shopping skills but the EG's Diary section certainly doesn't. If you look at the last page of tomorrow's Estates Gazette this is what you'll see:

                               *Stratford, REX FEATURES

Come on ODA this is the right thing to do.

How's this for a CV:

•  The first purpose-built ballroom in the country.
• Glenn Miller, Audrey Hepburn and Charlie Chaplin appeared there in the 40's.
• Became the Cat's Whiskers club, with a revolving stage in the 60's.
• Re-invented itself into the Lap Attack - London's first lap dancing club for women in the 90's.
• And finally was used as a location for Guy Ritchie's movie Snatch featuring Brad Pitt in 2007.

Locals may know it better as Caesar's Nightclub on Streatham Hill. Non-locals may know it as the one with the Roman chariot pulled by four horses above the entrance:

 So, imagine the shock of turning up there last week only to see that the horses (and chariot) had gone:

Fred Batt the former owner has striped the club of its contents, ahead of it being passed over to developer Glentoran who plans to build 243 resi units on the site (145 private, 98 social).

Mr Batt said: "If no one buys the statue it will have to go in my back garden, but I'm hoping someone locally will buy it, to keep it in Streatham as part of the club's history".

My theory/hope is that the ODA have bought it and it'll stand proudly above the entrance to the Olympic stadium. I lack the necessary photo-shopping skills to knock up a CGI of what it may look like so you'll just have to use your imagination.

Student housing it seems has been best placed to weather the recessionary storm over the past few years, with demand for bed spaces especially within central London sky high and the market still very much under supplied. The recent Knight Frank report into student housing highlights how the sector remains robust with 6% growth per annum compared to 0.6% for commercial property. Unite, the country's biggest provider of student accommodation in the UK has continued to grow and benefits from simple supply and demand market conditions to find it self well placed.

Here are three of there of schemes I visited last week when site visiting with recent changes.

The first is in Southwark on Great Suffolk Street, not far from Southbank and the Tate Modern. Unite secured a £66m loan from Barclays to buy and develop this site only last month which will provide 671 student beds. The whole site has recently been fully demolished with the site being cleared and now excavated. Expect this one to get underway very soon.

One that has started though is North Star House, a refurbishment of an office building on Holloway Road. This will provide 149 student beds and be perfect for students of London Metropolitan University.

And lastly another site on Holloway Road, this time more or less opposite the university campus and less than half a mile down the road at 301-315 Holloway Road. This one has recently completed and provides 160 student beds.

I noted back in August (blog post) that a large stock of council housing in Haggerston was being demolished, well it's now started, well under way in fact. The scheme will provide 761 residential units in total, 418 private and 343 social. It's quite a long narrow site and is really two estates divided by the Regents Canal. The Kingsland estate to the south of the Canal is further down the construction line, the concrete frame up to 6 storeys in height (below).

The Haggerston West estate to the north of the Canal has more recently got under construction with it up to 1 and 2 storeys in places. L&Q are developing the scheme with Taylor Wimpey.

The overall masterplan looks like this...

Plans are expected to be submitted soon to Tower Hamlets for the Huntingdon Estate, on Bethnal Green Road and opposite the newly opened Shoreditch High Street Overground station. The site, square in shape currently contains a couple of warehouse buildings with retail and residential fronting Redchurch Street. London Newcastle own the site and submitted a scoping opinion at the back end of 2008, stating their proposals were for a building of 12 storeys and around 150 residential units, designed by Amanda Levetes Architects.

Tower Hamlets Council along with Hackney which borders the site close by have big plans for the area with Bishopsgate goodsyard to the south (pictured) proposed to have a number of tall buildings. A scheme no more than 100 yards to the east of this site too 'Avant-Garde' is currently under construction and will rise to 25 storeys.

The picture above however makes the tower to look a lot more than just 12 storeys. To put it in comparison the larger building to the left of the swirling tower the 'Tea Building' rises to 8 storeys. It will be interesting to see what kind of response London Newcastle get from the local community once submitting the application and defining just how tall it will be. This is an area with a high proportion of artists and designers, on the border of Shoreditch and Hoxton. Big developers now want a piece of the action and are starting to gentrify the area, which the bohemian crowd obviously object to, evidenced by their recent opposition to the Foundry, not too far away. The off-site affordable housing incidentaly is to be situated next to the railway line close to Brick Lane.

The Daleks are coming, not only that their leader is already among us:

How could we have been so blind? The Londonist has the full shocking story

*Go here to see some great pictures of the inside from our very own EG Focus team.

Enderby Wharf on the western side of Greenwich Peninsula in between the Dome and National Maritime Museum is set to see a large cruise liner terminal built, well that's the plan anyway. This comes off the back of a recent report commisioned by the GLA and LDA into the future requirements of a cruise liner terminal within central London and in which concluded demand is likely to rise and current facilities are restricting growth.

Mason Developments along with GVA Grimley as planning consultants and Ian Simpson Architects have submitted plans for 770 residential units, 500 of them for the private market and 270 as social. A hotel building will also be provided with 251 beds along with a new jetty to allow docking for cruise liners, as seen below.

The plans were recently submitted to Greenwich and can be viewed here.