Chinese state broadcaster, China Central Television, is in talks to move to Blackstone’s Building 7 at Chiswick Park, W4.
The Beijing network, which is estimated to have 1bn viewers, has agreed to lease around 25,000 sq ft at the 334,000 sq ft building. It is expected to agree a lease at a rent of close to £55 per sq ft.
Blackstone sold Chiswick Park for £780m at the start of 2014 to sovereign wealth fund China Investment Corporation. However, the US private equity firm retained the Building 7 development project, which was completed almost a year ago.
It is understood that CCTV was initially eager to find a standalone building which it could own itself, for security reasons, but was unable to find a suitable location. Instead, given CIC’s broader ownership of Chiswick Park and CIC’s close relationship with Blackstone as one of its most important investors, Building 7 was considered appropriate.
Once the deal is completed just over 200,000 sq ft of space will be available at the building. The rest of the 1.8m sq ft business park is 98% occupied.
CCTV will join other media companies at Chiswick Park such as QVC, CBS News, Paramount International, Discovery Networks Europe and Volant Media.
Over the past five years CCTV has been looking to expand its English language-coverage, establishing operations in cities such as Washington DC and Nairobi. Since 2011 CCTV has run a European operation from the Associated Press’s Camden base on Oval Road, NW1, to syndicate its news material to broadcasters worldwide via AP’s video news service.
Savills, DTRE and CBRE are joint letting agents at Chiswick Park.
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