Up and out for the cup
Alongside our sentiment survey (p68), EG this week conducted another more frivolous reader poll. We asked the property industry where they would be watching key World Cup games during office hours.
Nearly one-third (27.8%) said they would be watching the matches at work and 2.2% said they were lucky enough to be going to South Africa. Just 24.4% reported that they would be too busy to watch matches. However, perhaps the least surprising result was that by far the majority (45.6%) said they would be sneaking off to “a venue in the UK where no one can contact me about work”.
That will be a noisy pub then.
Mood swings at Savills
Here’s a sure sign that the market is in a period of turmoil again. The name of Savills’ annual financing property presentation this week was hastily changed from “Back to normality” to “Plotting a course through volatility”.
The agent said that factors such as the Greek debt crisis and potential cuts in public spending have led to a sharp increase in nervousness among lenders over the past six weeks.
So much so that William Newsom, head of valuation at Savills, went round the 30 top lenders in the market, just to check they really were still lending.
They were, he said, but appetite was severely reduced. Cue last-minute rewrite.
Does CBRE have a Diagio habit?
Diary would never suggest that agents at CB Richard Ellis are a bunch of dipsomaniacs, but they do seem to have a bit of a thing going on with drinks giant Diageo.
Eight years ago, they took space from the company at Kingsley House, W1, for their West End headquarters. That office is home to the infamous C-Bar, which the company uses predominantly for corporate entertaining.
And now the agent is relocating its West End HQ to the nearby Henrietta Place, a building previously occupied by Diageo (p41). And luckily for CBRE, the new office features what was once London’s longest bar.
Although UK managing director Martin Samworth has exciting plans for the space, he’s adamant the bar will be staying.
CBRE staff will drink to that.
All glued up at Cannon Place
Hines’ 394,000 sq ft Cannon Place scheme is taking shape above Cannon Street station, EC4. As part of its marketing, the developer has produced a scale model of the complex complete with model cars, buses, taxis and people to demonstrate the scheme’s busy location.
However, Diary was surprised to discover that the developer had been forced to stick these pieces down with superglue in order to prevent cheeky visitors pinching the cars and placing the models in humorous positions.
Instant boss takes a delivery
Rob Hamilton, founder of serviced office broker and managed office space provider Instant, is the proud father of an “instant” baby.
Mrs Hamilton’s waters broke last week at around 5.50pm, but before the couple had a chance to head off to the hospital, it became apparent that things were moving more speedily than is usual.
Ever resourceful, Rob took up the role of midwife and delivered daughter Lola India by 6.10pm.
Had enough of CGIs?
This week, try…sugar
Diary celebrates moving into a new home at the back of EG with the launch this week of a regular feature on the alternatives to CGIs.
Over the years, we’ve grown tired of the property industry’s unimaginative use of idealised computer-generated imagery to push developments. And we want to see alternatives used.
So, in what may be the first ever campaign from property’s best-read page, this week we launch with sugar.
So, if you’re looking to get a development off the ground, instead of commissioning a graphic artist, why not use a sugar cube sculptor instead to inch your dreams towards reality?
Native Land and Grosvenor have. They commissioned a sugar model of NEO Bankside – their 24-storey, 197-apartment residential tower beside Tate Modern – as part of the developers’ contribution to this summer’s London Festival of Architecture. Sweet.
