As epitaphs go, there can be few greater than the Shard. Attention-grabbing, skyline-changing, always a talking point and, ultimately, a tremendous success. It’s not a precise parallel for its developer, but in so many respects it’s damn close.
Irvine Sellar, who passed away this week after a short illness, was something of a reluctant property developer. He began in retail and preferred its fast pace to property. You saw the fruits of your labour selling clothes on the high street quicker than developing a building, he once told me. Given that the Shard took him 14 years from conception to inauguration, perhaps he wasn’t joking.
Sellar first made his name on Carnaby Street in its 60s heyday with Mates, the first fashion retailer to sell both men’s and women’s clothing in the same store.
He moved from retail to property in the 1980s. Throughout a six-decade business career, determination, resilience and a tough negotiating style poured out of him. Those who sat across the table from Sellar had to be on their toes. As did those he employed. Advisers especially could not afford to rest on their laurels for a moment. Each has a tale to tell.
He was mischievous, he could be contrary and he was always fiercely proud. In seeking to deliver a major new skyscraper, who else would have turned to Renzo Piano, an architect with a profound distaste for these “aggressive symbols of power”?
Schoolchildren’s interest in the Shard delighted him. And he wanted to show off every square inch of the building whenever he could.
Few individuals in recent decades have had such a profound impact on London. Not just through a 95-storey tower. He turned a rundown part of town into a destination. And in doing so he added greatly to the capital’s standing as a world city.
“We’ve changed this town,” Sellar told EG only a few weeks ago. “I did, if you like.”
Yes, he did. And for the better.
• Congratulations to LandAid, which raised more than £250,000 for youth homelessness projects at a gala dinner attended by the Duke of Cambridge this week.
The event, held at London’s Guildhall and attended by 500 senior industry figures, celebrated the property industry charity’s 30th anniversary. It also marked the launch of LandAid’s new capital appeal to help create a state-of-the-art 146-bedroom building near Old Street. The dinner gave the appeal a headstart: half of the money raised will go towards the charity’s target of £1.5m to create LandAid House, which will provide accommodation for some of London’s most vulnerable young people.
Due to open in autumn 2018, it will offer a safe place to live for 146 young people plus advice on housing, education, training and wellbeing.
The significance of LandAid House should not be underestimated. It signals a step change in the charity’s ambition and could begin to turn around this industry’s reputation in the eyes of the man and woman on the street.
LandAid has long funded projects without being clearly linked with their outcomes. Its name above the door will send a powerful message that property can be a force for good.
The Duke of Cambridge clearly believes that, given his public support for the dinner, the charity and the cause. And if the industry acts like it believes it too, the wider public might also prove open-minded.
• To send feedback, email damian.wild@estatesgazette.com or tweet @DamianWild or @estatesgazette
