Previously a college site on the western side of
Just "around the corner", further north at
February 2011 Archives
A former office building and depot site in Fitzrovia has been re-developed into an "exclusive" scheme containing 11 private plots - seven townhouses and four apartments.
The two-bedroom apartments are priced at £895,000 each, the three-bedroom townhouses are valued at £2,995,000 and the three-bed penthouse apartment is selling for £3.0 million. These prices reflect £ / sq ft values between £1,241 and £1,861.
Link to scheme
This small hotel has been converted into a boutique development of six apartments in Westbourne Green, near Bayswater. Prices range from £895,000 for a two-bed single-floor unit to £4.75 million for a three-bed duplex. £ / sq ft values range between £1,050 and £1,670.
......to live in the Shard!
That is the amount you will need to cough up for one apartment if the speculators are correct. An article in this week's Evening Standard said that prices could be set around £4,000 per square foot when the flats come to the market.
This mouth-watering figure is calculated when you divide the reported 62,000 sq ft of residential space that will be split over 14 proposed apartments.
Expensive - yes. But well worth it some will argue given the exclusivity that comes with the price tag, let alone the copious amounts of space. I guess one of the real benefits of living in such an iconic tower will be at least you wouldn't have to worry about giving the taxi driver directions home after a night out - just point to the skies and tell them to head towards the tower!
A full application has been submitted for the redevelopment of Twickenham Railway Station. To be developed by Solum Regeneration, a joint venture between Network Rail and Kier Property, the scheme is to provide a newly refurbished railway station, 165 new homes and new shopping facilities, with a new riverside walkway along the River Crane. It is hoped that this scheme will be completed in time for the 2015 Rugby World Cup in
Solum Regeneration was set up as a partnership for the initial redevelopment of Epsom,
Outline planning permission has been granted for a major site in Romford, just to the south-west of the town centre. Swan Housing Association has won planning consent for 366 residential units in total, 262 of them private and 104 social. Here's a render of the scheme in question, to the left of the picture, in grey. The long linear site of 6/7 blocks adjacent to the railway has already been built out by Taylor Wimpey. The bigger blocks to the right are also Taylor Wimpey's and have recently gone under construction, as of December 2010. This scheme known as 'Reflections' totals 716 residential units in total. Both of these schemes are on the site of the former Oldchurch Hospital and are going a long way to providing extra housing in the east London borough of Havering.
...is kicking off next month. Peter Bill, former editor of the EG signs off his column in the magazine this week with the revelation that a number of local authorities, despite the spending cuts, will be jetting off to
Bill's blog Reality Check here.
Estates Gazette has reported this week coalition government officials have asked the property industry their views on the possibility of allowing change of use from B1 to C3 to be allowed as permitted development. It would mean a planning application would not be required for the conversion of office or light industrial space to residential use.
Presumably there would need to be some rules. If we take the Gherkin as an example - it was sold for "in excess of £600 million" at the peak of the market in early 2007. That works out at just over £1,300 per sq ft of net office space. If that could be changed to residential I'd hazard a guess it'd be worth more. It'd be quite an architectural challenge though.
I think the short answer is if it means empty offices that are no longer fit for purpose are swiftly bought into use to provide homes then great, if it means landlords are tempted to end/not renew commercial leases to turn a fast buck in converting useful employment generating space to a swanky pad for somebody then possibly not so great.
Could mean empty office or light industrial units suddenly become a much more attractive proposition for those prepared to take a punt. It's a tricky risk to quantify though.
This street has seen a hive of activity over the past five years with no fewer than nine sites having gone through planning looking to deliver a selection of new flats into this Central East London location.
This part of Shoreditch is ideal as a rental hub, with great access into the City and also a stones throw to the quirky street market of
The other developments are:
A former printing house in Borough, close to the
...a former auction house developed into a contemporary development - has now been released to the market in Putney. The scheme comprises 12 apartments and two townhouses. Prices for the apartments range from £365,000 to £710,000, representing £ / sq ft figures between £640 and £701. The houses are priced at £860,000 and £870,000 with an average £ / sq ft figure of £667. More details from Savills.
The latest idea to be put forward to the Olympic Park Legacy Committee is to bring the slopes to East London in the form of an indoor ski slope. Birmingham based Acer Snowmec who also brought the snow to the Middle East with ski venue Ski Dubai has put forward proposals for a 28,500 sq m snow park.
The proposed centre would have five artificial indoor ski slopes and a pitch of 35 degrees and would incorporate sharp turns to test the more advanced skier. Plans for the snow sports and leisure complex also include retail outlets and a hotel which could draw up to a million visitors a year. Not sure I would want the electricity bills for it though!
Planning permission has been granted for a mixed use residential and retail scheme to the north of Tottenham. The scheme involves the demolition of an 11 storey residential tower in poor condition, to make way for 120 residential units and ov er 1,000 sq m of retail space. The council will now begin the process of appointing a developer.
Outline plans have recently been submitted to London Borough of Lewisham for the comprehensive redevelopment of the area surrounding Millwall FC Stadium. Originally dubbed the 'Surrey Canal Triangle' by Lewisham it's now going under 'London's Sporting Village', by developers Renewal with plans to provide new indoor facilities for a number of sports including football, badminton, basketball and cricket. Permission has been sought also for development of a new hotel and office space, and up to 2,500 new homes on the site.
As part of the plans, Millwall FC Stadium, 'The Den', will also be refurbished and extended.
...get house for free...get paid to be there.
Buisness Insider has the story along with some great pictures by Kevin Bauman
In the summer of 1752 a young curate called Edward Hughes married his childhood sweetheart, Mary Lewis in a small church overlooking the Irish Sea on the western periphery of Anglesey in
Early in the morning of the 2nd March 1768 a local man, Roland Puw was out walking on
For his discovery on that day the Welsh miner was given a bottle of brandy together with rent free accommodation for the rest of his life. Not bad for a mornings work, not bad unless you consider the enormity of what he'd found. What Roland Puw had discovered on that day nearly two hundred and fifty years ago was a rich seam of copper on the east face of
The barren hill was of course part of Mary Hughes' inheritance and if you want an idea of how rich that rich seam of copper made them, consider that ten years after the find the mine was producing an income (in today's money) of £200m...each year. Indeed there was so much copper in the hill that it became the major source of the metal not only in
So a bit of a dilemma for Mr & Mrs Hughes (not really), although they already live in the best house on the island it's still missing something, they've considered getting a bigger house, but that sounds, well a little pedestrian, a little lacking in ambition perhaps.
What they're going to need is a mansion, no... a palace, a big one.
Something like this:
Not big enough, don't worry, this is only part of it, there is more, much more. Dubed the Versailles of North Wales, it's called Kinmel Hall, it's got over 122 rooms and it's yours for £3.5m...that's around 30k a room, bargain.
Colliers is the agent.
You might remember my blog about the Kingsland Basin last summer and how over the last 10 years it has become compeletly gentrified from industrial wharves to a pleasant residential neighbourhood. Site visiting yesterday revealed that the three large schemes which will complete the development around it, have all kicked off or are at least very close to.
The biggest one, L&Q's Kingsland Wharves has started across the whole site, with part of the social element up to 3 storeys. When completed the site will provide 207 residential units.
Neighbouring this site is Raglan Wharf, a development for 117 residential units which received just over £6m in funding from the HCA. The site has recently been demolished and cleared with preparatory works now being undertaken. Metropolitan Housing Trust is the developer.
And finally another development less than 20 yards across the road is 46-68 De Beauvoir Crescent. Again demolition has very recently taken place with 2 large pile drivers now on site, construction here is likely to get underway soon. The site being developed by Regal Homes will provide 76 residential units.
This site below, is Buckner Road in Brixton, which last Thursday received permission to turn in to a car park...
A short distance away on Brixton Station Road is this site, a former car park which last year was found to be structurally unsafe and is in the process of being demolished. Also gaining planning permission at the same Lambeth Council meeting it will now become a temporary ice rink for 3 years.
The developer of both of these sites is Tesco. Why? Well it means they can develop their Streatham Hub scheme just a couple of miles down the road in one phase, instead of two. Their planners have been negotiating with Lambeth in order to change the S106 legal agreement and move the ice rink off-site to speed up construction, and it now seems they have got their way.
A number of locals both in Streatham and Brixton, as well as the mayor of London, Boris Johnson have been against the idea but for me it seems like a practical compromise. When complete the Streatham Hub scheme will provide 250 residential units, as well as a new Tesco store and leisure facilities which include of course the ice rink and swimming pool.
A pop-up shopping mall made entirely of shipping containers is set to open in August, on the corner of Bethnal Green Road and Shoreditch High Street. The developers claim it's the first of its kind anywhere in the world and will include only hand picked small independent retailers.
It will also mean the Bishopsgate goods yard site being joint developed by Hammerson and Ballymore will not start on site for at least another 5 years due to this temporary use planning permission, although it will only cover a small portion of the site in the North West corner. Still for such a large scheme, this definitely won't be starting any time soon in the current climate.
I anticipate this 'Box Park' as their calling it to be a huge success, Shoreditch is the perfect location for this type of thing. I can even see this expanding in size from the 60 container units it's starting off as and spilling over on to more of the site due to its popularity. Expect a big grumble from the 'cool kids' in 5 years time, when the temporary use comes to a close and the market has picked up enough for Hammerson and Ballymore to stick a spade in the ground.
For a November 2011 update of this story go here.
Office to 258 bedroom hotel application submitted for Groupma House, 24-26 Minories in the City. The developer is
Subject to Mayoral approval the application for the redevelopment of RAF Uxbridge has been granted. The proposed development will include 1,296 residential units, of which at least 15% (194) will be affordable, 13,860 sq m of office space a 90 bedroom hotel and a 1,200 seat theatre.
The sales office at The Hamptons development in has confirmed that in the final phase 50 plots have been sold/reserved. Current availability consists of three- and four-bedroom houses with prices ranging between £369,950 and £589,950. The majority of the sales went to owner/occupiers. Link.
The last and most technologically advanced nuclear bunker ever built is for sale. Located about 50 miles from
There's been a lot of talk about the Olympic stadium of late. Not so much chat about the media centre though. Media centre? Where's that? Well it's in Hackney Wick, cost us £355 m and plans are afoot to turn it into an indoor snow resort. Our very own Paul Norman has the story on his Olympic blog.
Below is a picture of the recently completed private residence in Mumbai of Mukesh Ambani, the richest man in Asia and expected to be the richest man in the world by 2014. Designed as a home for him and his immediate family (a household of no more than 6 people) its 27 floors will also include parking space for 160 cars, 3 helipads, a 2-storey heath and fitness centre, a 50-seat cinema, several indoor swimming pools, luxurious guest rooms and suites and around 3 floors of hanging gardens. All of this will require around 600 household staff. The 172m tower, which offers over 37,000sqm of floor space is said to be worth over £1bn and press reports stated the first monthly power bill cost the owner £98,251. One word that comes to mind is ridiculous.
What is the forecast for the London residential development market?
The Red Book: Residential Development in London 2012 is out now. For the latest outlook on the London market get your FREE executive summary.
