VIDEO: Canary Wharf’s newest retail destination opens to the public tomorrow.
Estates Gazette was taken on a special preview tour of Crossrail Place – a fully let seven-storey building designed by Foster & Partners that sits above the new station and features shops, a cinema, restaurants, fitness facilities and a roof garden.
Brands include Everyman Cinemas and Bespoke Cycling, as well as a number of independent retailers.
Canary Wharf Group chairman George Iacobescu said: “The opening of Crossrail Place is a defining moment for Canary Wharf. The area is evolving constantly, providing a diverse range of options, addressing the increasing demand for social and leisure facilities.
“This is only the beginning of an extraordinary development. With the arrival of Crossrail and the recent launch of Canary Wharf Residential, we will be able to offer our local residents on the estate and nearby a vibrant, social, cultural and sustainable community in which people aspire to live, work and relax.”
The roof garden of Crossrail Place features a latticed timber roof and sits in North Dock at Canary Wharf.
Many of the plants in the roof garden are native to countries visited by ships of the West India Dock Company, which unloaded goods where the station now sits.
Crossrail Place opens to the public on Friday 1 May. The roof garden is open from dawn until dusk and booking is not required.
The shops and restaurants will open in phases with the first 10 opening from Friday. Those include Bespoke Cycling, The Breakfast Club, Chai Ki, CPRESS, Notes Coffee Roasters & Wine Bar, NatWest, Poncho 8, Sports Bar & Grill, Sticks’n’Sushi, and Tiger.
Everyman Cinema and fitness club Psycle London open from mid May.
The Crossrail station will open in 2018.
Lunson Mitchenall and Bruce Gillingham Pollard were joint agents advising Canary Wharf Group on the retail elements of the scheme.
nathan.cross@estatesgazette.com
