When British Land and GIC’s 135 Bishopsgate, EC2, was developed in the 1980s as a 325,000 sq ft banking HQ, its architect, SOM, designed an imposing balustrade entrance and fortress-like façade.
Now, with RBS departed and the footprint of financial services waning in the City, the joint venture partners have a very different vision for the building on the edge of their Broadgate estate by Liverpool Street Station.
“At the moment, along Bishopsgate, this very masculine, defensive wall says ‘suits and only for banks’,” says Charles Horne, BL’s project director.
“But we are taking all that away and creating a much more open space to invite people in, making it much more of a seven-day-a-week destination.”
Retail upgrade
The City of London Corporation has approved plans to tear down the balustrade, adding steps down to street level and an additional 30,000 sq ft of shops, increased from an existing 8,000 sq ft, which will include a food hall. BL and GIC will also create green spaces and terraces.
The plans form part of a wider transformation plan for the 4.7m sq ft Broadgate campus, where there is circa 1m sq ft under development across 100 Liverpool Street (a 520,000 sq ft redevelopment completing in 2019); 135 Bishopsgate; and 1 Finsbury Avenue (a 288,000 sq ft office-led refurbishment due to complete next year).
By increasing the retail and leisure offering from 100,000 sq ft to 300,000-350,000 sq ft, the developer is hoping to repitch Broadgate as a “destination”, pulling in customers from the station, nearby Spitalfields and the emerging tech hub around Amazon’s new HQ at Principal Place, E1.
“We are creating a change so Broadgate is no longer this inward-looking scheme and it starts to spill back out into its neighbourhood,” says David Lockyer, head of Broadgate.
The next opportunities for redevelopment are 2&3 Finsbury Avenue, where BL has planning consent for a 563,000 sq ft redevelopment and 1&2 Broadgate, a 305,272 sq ft office building that will become vacant in 2019 and has been earmarked as having potential for additional retail.
“We are thinking about what we might do with 1&2 Broadgate right now, in terms of the prioritisation of it and 2&3 Finsbury Avenue. I think 2&3 today, we are probably only going to proceed on the basis of a [complete] prelet, or a very significant [part] prelet. 1&2 Broadgate is a really exciting scheme where we can introduce a lot more retail and create a continuation of the retail we are putting into developments across Broadgate.”
Enhancing Storey’s brand
The retail strategy is one part of plans to attract a more diverse occupier mix to the estate, which has recently secured cyber security company Mimecast, challenger bank Starling and fintech body Innovate Finance at 1 FA and 2FA.
“It’s the spaces outside the buildings, as well as the buildings themselves, which means we can curate those spaces and create an environment for our occupiers, that is more aligned with how they want to live and work today,” says Lockyer.
The estate, through its Storey brand, is now offering flexible workspace to meet the growing demand from small and medium-sized businesses, as well as short-term project space in larger spaces. Leases are all-inclusive. Storey now totals 58,000 sq ft across 2FA and Appold Studios at Broadgate, with occupiers including WiredScore and digital advertising company Platform 360.
However, the campus will continue to appeal to traditional financial services firms such as Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation Europe, which this month signed for three floors at 100 Liverpool Street on a 20-year lease.
“Broadgate is always going to appeal to financial services,” Lockyer says. “They are certainly going to be here for many years to come in the southern areas of Broadgate. But what I see increasing in some of other buildings is conversations with fintech companies and those from other sectors.”
Campus strategy 2.0
BL plans to expand Storey across its central London campuses (Regent’s Place, NW1; Paddington, W2; Broadgate and Canada Water, SE16), and allow occupiers to easily transfer their occupation throughout the estate.
B&Q owner Kingfisher, which has a headquarters at BL’s 3 Sheldon Square, W2, has taken 25,000 sq ft of Storey space at Broadgate for B&Q’s online digital centre, which Lockyer says “plays to that campus strategy”.
This strategy of BL chief executive Chris Grigg has seen the company create office-led destinations that benefit from BL estate management and long-term interest in areas of central London that will benefit from Crossrail.
James Carswell, research analyst at Peel Hunt, says the campus strategy offers two advantages. One is economies of scale from a management perspective. The second is the ability to create better places using the public realm.
“If you go to Broadgate and Paddington and then you go to the Landsec cluster in Victoria, there’s a huge difference in terms of the public realm. Victoria has a huge road going through Landsec’s holdings.
“Compare that to British Land, it has the canals at Paddington, public space and ice rink, sports events – tenants go there because British Land owns the campuses and the public realm is included so I think, all things being equal, tenants would probably rather go somewhere like Broadgate.”
Last year, BL and GIC launched the £1.1bn prospective sale of 5 Broadgate, UBS’s HQ, which is being bought by Abu Dhabi sovereign wealth fund Mubadala Investment Company.
Could BL be repositioning its campuses for a near-term sale? Lockyer says no.
“Broadgate is something that has been in ownership by BL for a long time and part of our campus strategy is firmly in line with retaining these assets.”
Broadgate in numbers
4.7m sq ft current estate
1m sq ft under development
58,000 sq ft flexible workspace currently under BL’s Storey brand
100,000 sq ft existing retail
350,000 sq ft Between 300,000-350,000 sq ft retail offering in 2020
32 acres London’s largest central pedestrianised area outside of the royal parks
To send feedback, e-mail Louisa.Clarence-Smith@egi.co.uk or tweet @LouisaClarence or @estatesgazette
