The vision of building super-posh flats for the super-rich is dissolving in a climate too acidic to sustain the fiction that there are enough millionaires with enough money to keep the business model built by the Candy brothers flying.
This week, the young developers’ plans to build 252 very posh flats in California collapsed in a heap when the banks that had lent $365m towards the scheme issued a default notice (p27). Nick and Christian Candy have effectively been disbarred from a site in the West End of London as well.
When the Candys paid £175m for the old Middlesex Hospital site north of Oxford Street in 2006, there was disbelief from other bidders. The value of the 3-acre site now stands somewhere south of £100m. Stricken Icelandic bank Kaupthing has an outstanding loan north of £200m. It can hardly be blamed for wrenching the site back.
The Candys still have an interest in the Chelsea Barracks site, bought with Qatari money for £975m. But packing over 600 flats onto the 12-acre site has met sustained opposition. It is very likely that the whole scheme will be redesigned.
The vision of there being a market for super-flats for the super-rich now seems just so much well-spun candyfloss.
