We may remain a nation of ?over-eating couch potatoes, but ?when we build it they will come.
The Olympic Park reopens this weekend. A cause for celebration and further evidence of a legacy, from a property perspective, well delivered. The emergence this week of the first significant office move to Stratford is further proof of that.
No doubt about it, the Financial Conduct Authority’s decision to up sticks from Canary Wharf to a new 500,000 sq ft HQ at Lend Lease and London and Continental Railways’ International Quarter puts Stratford firmly on the map as an office location. The FCA is the first sizeable occupier to move lock, stock and regulatory barrel to the area.
You could argue it had little choice. At a time when it was going cap in hand to government for additional funding it would have struggled to justify paying up to £45 per sq ft at Canary Wharf when less than £35 per sq ft was on offer up the road.
The deal is a tremendous boost for Lend Lease and LCR. It may only be a first bite at the 4m sq ft of offices planned for TIQ in the long term, but it’s an important one.
There is an irony at play, of course. Twenty years ago Canary Wharf burst onto the scene as a young upstart looking to win business from the establishment City of London. I’ll let you fill in the punchline.
¦ An exciting contest looms in June: Boris vs Rudi. The mayoral titans of London and (formerly) New York in conversation over lunch at Tower 42 in the City of London. The event will raise money for the Mayor’s Fund for London, which provides skills and opportunities for disadvantaged young people in the capital so they can escape the threat of poverty. It will no doubt see the debate around which city is the real estate capital of the world hotly contested. (We all know the answer, but I’m looking forward to hearing Giuliani’s view.)
EG will be there, of course. To ensure you are too, e-mail tfox@mayorsfundforlondon.org.uk.
¦ Is your job under threat? It may feel like an ill-timed question in such a strongly recovering market, but this time the threat is not economic but robotic (p46). The rise of the machines is costing factory workers their jobs in the US. And while the threat to white-collar jobs may be exaggerated – or not, according to some futurologists – the implications for how and where we work are already being felt.
Of course, these forecasts do have a habit of coming around every half a decade or so. And yes, predictions of drastic consequences always run ahead of reality. Yet with driverless cars around the corner, requirements for “loose-fit buildings” prevelant and the increasing digitisation of leisure (robots already deliver drinks in at least one bar in London), ignore the trend at your peril.
¦ Office-to-resi conversions are so old hat. Office-to-education conversions are now where it’s at. Two central London office blocks sold this week have been earmarked for redevelopment under the government’s free schools programme. Tribeca Holdings has sold the Ministry of Justice’s home, , SW1, to the Department for Education for the Harris Westminster Sixth Form Free School. Meanwhile, in Hammersmith the West London Free School has bought 15,800 sq ft from Berwick Hill and F&C REIT. A two-off, or a trend? Well, the government has spent £743m on establishing 174 free schools for 80,000 pupils so far, an investment that the National Audit Office expects to double. Big numbers that deserve to be borne in mind. Resi is not the only alternative future for city-centre office buildings.
Damian.Wild@estatesgazette.com
