July 2010 Archives

I had hoped that all of the hullabaloo surrounding the Olympics and two years to go this week would flush out a few more of the prospective anchor tenants for the Stadium and the media centre in legacy.
It was not to be but I think this interview with Karren Brady of West Ham goes some way to outlining what is likely to happen at the Stadium. 

Tottenham Hotspur fans will have no doubt been choking on their dinners last night as they digested news that once again linked the club to east London's Olympics Stadium.
The Beeb was pounding the streets near the club's north London home asking clearly distressed fans what they thought about the idea.
Interesting story though it is, I suspect they have little to worry about.

Following on from the Beeb's splendid new version of Sherlock Holmes last night I have today had one of those relatively rare opportunities do a bit of journalistic detective work to uncover an interesting Olympics story.
The organisers of the London 2012 Olympics will tomorrow open the first Olympic souvenir shop at a secret address. That much has been known ... until now.

A punchy snippet of a tale in the Standard today which suggests West Ham are getting slightly gung ho about their chances of being principal tenant at the Olympic Stadium post Games.

Back from rainy Wales and a week trying to keep up with my son and I am now taking a look at all things Olympics that have been happening, particularly as this Tuesday will see a fanfare of "two years to go" announcements.
Before I went on holiday I interviewed Baroness Ford and Andrew Altman at the Olympic Park Legacy Company about their emerging vision for the Olympic Park post-Games for an interview that has just been published in Estates Gazette.
The latest issue of EG is in fact devoted in large part to the Olympics development.
I found Ford and Altman candid, confident and, most importantly, still hugely excited by the project. They said a lot more of interest than I had space to cover so I will try to include some of that later on.
The link to the feature is here .
If you can't get in to that and want to read it I have published it below:

Just to say the High Court has this morning thrown out building group Rooff's appeal for significant compensation from the LDA for the compulsory purchase of land to make way for the Olympic Park.

The decision is likely to snuff out similar claims for millions of pounds worth of claims. Here is the verdict:

A number of papers have picked up on the IKEA Olympics story I wrote last week. It would be great to get an interview with the Swedish group however and I am working on it. 

Nick at Inside Housing has added a few interesting bits surrounding the make-up of the team IKEA's Landprop development arm might work with.

Housing associations Southern Housing Group and East Thames, who are both involved in the Triathlon consortium at the Athletes Village, would like to remain involved with the project which they had been working on with the previous developer.

Matthew Black at CB Richard Ellis, which acted for the LPA Receiver on the sale, is remaining tightlipped about this.

I am maintaining a dignified silence on the whole Boris Johnson Daily Mirror front page "inverted pyramid of piffle" stuff today, given that it is only really tangentially an Olympics story I suppose.

Fortunately Dave Hill of The Guardian has no such concerns so click here for an interesting view and a poignant headline.

John Biggs and Andrew Boff, two of the London Assembly members that most often take the powers that be to task over Olympic Legacy, were in good form this afternoon questioning LDA chief executive Peter Rogers on the agency's Olympics work.

Biggs wanted to get to the bottom of the thorny issue of the government's £9.3bn budget for the Olympics and what it all really means.

A quick but significant update from today's London Assembly grilling of the LDA over budgets:

Peter Rogers, chief executive LDA, has just said the mayor's development and regeneration agency has began talks with staff today that will see its headcount reduced by 100.

He said that the talks had been driven by government notification that the agency needs to push through a 10% reduction in its administration budget in the year. Rogers said there would be around 50 compulsory redundancies.

Well here's some good news - even property bankers are taking a bet on the long-term benefits of the Olympics for east London, so there must be something in it.

According to a survey of professionals at Lloyds Banking Group's annual Property Horizons conference this week, seven out of ten property professionals believe that the London 2012 Games will contribute to the recovery of the commercial property market in London while 92% of the audience feel that the London 2012 Games will have a long-term positive affect on property values in east London.

Here's another bit of exciting Olympics development news I can reveal exclusively here - it's been a particularly active week.
Inter IKEA, the investment arm of the Swedish furniture giant completed a major investment in the Olympics zone on Thursday. I am told it is the largest single private sector investment in the area since Westfield bought the Stratford City site a couple of years ago.
Any way, here is the story I am publishing in tomorrow's Estates Gazette.

Here are some exclusive images of the first 130,000 sq ft of offices that will be built at the Olympic Park as well as a great image of the park in the future kindly passed to me by Westfield.
The important thing to say here is these offices will be built by next year - you cannot argue that Westfield is prepared to put its money where its confidence is.
Of course that confidence is bound to be aided by Capita's interest in around 100,000 sq ft of the space - I wrote about that a month or so ago.
A little birdy also tells me that Westfield is itself reviewing its occupation of its High Holborn offices where it has around two years of its lease to run.
How much does Westfield let there - around 30,000 sq ft! Don't be surprised to see them moving east at some stage is all I'm saying.

There are a lot of happy and relieved people at the Olympic Park Legacy Company and at City Hall this morning.

Chancellor George Osborne has agreed to sign off the crucial £438m land deal that will see the 500-acre Olympic Park transfer debt free to the Olympic Park Legacy Company.

Baroness Ford and Andrew Altman have both been stepping up the ante on this recently so they will feel a crucial battle has been won. I am told that Boris Johnson and new Olympics minister Hugh Robertson have both been assiduous in pressing the new administration to sign off the deal.

And so over to City Hall for a lunch event focusing on High Speed One to see the new Transport Secretary Philip Hammond massively disappoint a gathering of prominent figures all united by a common interest in the lasting regeneration of east London and Stratford.

Hammond had no intention of answering the prayers of a selection of senior politicians, developers and investors by committing to bringing a direct High Speed One stop to Stratford International Station.

Representatives from Newham council, Birmingham Airport, the London Assembly, the British Property Federation, 02 developer AEG Europe, Westfield and Excel joined forces at the event to lobby Hammond to ensure "Stratford becomes an international railway hub".

And it did feel at times like the poor chap was being pressganged, but for good reason.

After getting some invective off of my chest yesterday about the BBC and its habit of claiming stories for itself that have been around since the dawn of time, here is what it can do well - and yes I am still paying my licence fee.

This video piece from Adrian Warner today includes interviews with Baroness Ford and Boris Johnson that make it clear that the Treasury's ongoing review of the "fiscally neutral" deal to transfer the Olympic Park to the Olympic Park Legacy Company is becoming a matter of grave concern for all those who want to create a vibrant community in the area post-Games.

You can always tell when the vague rumblings of a story have become a bona fide newsworthy item - the BBC has learned about it.

Well strike me down if the BBC did not learn yesterday that the Olympic land and debt transferral to the Olympic Park Legacy Company has not yet been signed off.

I've learned that the Olympic Park Legacy Company is looking at a figure of around 8,000 homes as it works up its masterplan for the Olympic Park - a substantial reduction from the 10,000 to 12,000 proposed in the London Development Agency's original legacy master-plan framework - drawn up by architects EDAW, KCAP and Allies & Morrison in early 2009.

That is no great surprise given the OPLC's stated focus on revising the original masterplan to focus much more on family housing.

The headline here is a little cheeky. Catalyst Capital is being linked to buying LandSec's shopping centre in Stratford - by my colleague Annabel Dixon in a story in Estates Gazette this week.

Annabel has picked up that the investor is in pole position to buy the centre which of course has a significant rival springing out of the ground just up the road in the form of Westfield's mega Stratford mall.

Catalyst is understood to be paying close to the asking price of £90m for the 336,000 sq ft shopping centre. The price reflects a 7.5% yield.

A couple of Olympics-related stories again - it never stops!
Matthew at The Standard has picked up that Boris is about to announce plans to invest £6m in setting up a media centre for unaccredited journalists during the 2012 Games.