Good morning,
Eli Lilly is a step closer to returning to London after shortlisting three buildings in the capital’s Knowledge Quarter. The pharma giant, which left the capital 89 years ago, has selected two sites in King’s Cross and one in Bloomsbury.
British Land has secured Biotech firm LGC Group for 50,000 sq ft at the Priestley Centre, in Guildford’s Surrey Research Park.
And Octopus Investments is seeking development partners after amassing £1bn of capital for BTR later-living schemes in the UK.
London Square has signed an amended version of the remediation contract after Michael Gove admitted the developer should not have been placed on the “non-compliance” list. The reversal follows CBRE-owned Telford Homes’ decision to sign the contract. Chief executive Anne Kavanagh told EG it had needed to seek shareholder approval as “the laws have been changed retrospectively”.
Meanwhile, the chancellor has quietly dropped plans to make sovereign wealth funds pay corporation tax on property. The policy reversal is buried in the fine print of the Budget.
MEPC is in talks to let the remaining 40,000 sq ft of offices at 11 & 12 Wellington Place in Leeds to a trio of occupiers, including JLL.
Frasers Group has bought the Mall in Luton for £58m. Wells Fargo was selling the 1m sq ft shopping centre after taking control from Capital & Regional. It had originally marketed it at £81m.
McLaren Property has won permission to revive St Gabriel’s chapel and lodge in Manchester as 319 student beds.
And, in case you missed it, Hong Kong’s Knight Dragon is looking for a £500m forward-funding deal for Peninsula Quays, the next phase of its Greenwich Peninsula project.
Does the transparency offered through auctions give the sector an advantage over private treaty, EG asks a panel of experts. And should all transactions be made clearer? Allsop partner George Walker makes the case for greater transparency.
And campaigners are fighting for mature trees to be given the same level of protection as listed buildings. The call, by the Woodland Trust, follows the felling of more than 100 trees in Plymouth “under the cover of darkness” to make way for a £17m regeneration project, and a damning report into the decision to chop down thousands of trees in Sheffield in 2016.
