Yesterday morning's main property and real estate news story was that Lend Lease had sold their stake in the huge Greenwich Peninsula scheme to Hong Kong group Knight Dragon. They now have 60% of the scheme, with Quintain the remaining 40% (EGi News).
This is one of the capital's biggest regeneration projects, if not the biggest come to think of it (under single ownership). 190 acres, 29,000 jobs, 3.5million sq ft of offices, over 150 shops and restaurants and a river frontage of 1.6 miles; the equivalent distance between Waterloo and London Bridge. You get the picture.
As well as the good news between Knight Dragon and Lend Lease, I was there only last week to find some site preparatory works being undertaken by contractor Blackwell. A couple of workmen on site explained that works at this very early stage are concentrating on soil preparation, in order to then hand over to a main contractor at a later date.
A bit of digging via Greenwich Council's planning pages confirmed exactly that. The sites in question are the Greenwich Quay stockpile area (official name Greenwich Quayside) and the Gateway site (see below). The image on the left was taken from the 'Works Methods Planning Statement', submitted in February of this year in conjunction with the works taking place at the moment.
The scale of this regeneration project means it's a good 25-30 year scheme, if not more than that, done piecemeal in numerous phases. Hopefully with the news of overseas investment and some site preparatory works under way, construction of further phases won't be too far down the line. Greenwich Quayside has plans for residential, hotel and student accommodation.
(click on image to enlarge)
As well as that, with Lend Lease earning £100million from selling their stake in the scheme, hopefully their focus can now shift towards Elephant & Castle? That really would be win-win.
