Hines has bought Black Pearl’s 18 Blackfriars Road site, SE1, for £209m with plans for a £1bn redevelopment.
The developer has teamed up with Lipton Rogers Developments to transform the 1.8-acre site in Southwark, with Foster + Partners drawing up the plans.
The currently vacant site, which sits to the south of Berkeley Group’s One Blackfriars, already has planning consent for a 53-storey, mixed-used tower designed by Wilkinson Eyre, which would have been Southwark’s second tallest building after the Shard.
Last year, Black Pearl was reported to be seeking buyers for the site, with a price tag of around £235m. It was understood to have entered exclusivity with Black Pearl bought the site in 2014 from the Israeli-backed Circleplane, which in turn picked it up from Landsec.
The deal appears to have taken the form of a buyout by Hines of Black Pearl itself, the jv set up by Malaysian property company IGB and Tower Ray.
IGB said its wholly-owned unit Verokey Sdn Bhd and Tower Ray had each sold their 50% stakes in Black Pearl, which has the land at 18 Blackfriars Road as its only holding, and transferred their shareholder debt to HNG Blackfriars 1 Ltd for £208.75m.
Hines will announce further plans for its mixed-use development “in due course” but said it “envisions the creation of a highly amenitised, dynamic environment”.
Ross Blair, senior managing director and head of Hines UK, said: “We are thrilled to have secured what is undoubtedly one of the most sought-after development opportunities in London. With the site in our ownership, we are focused on working with the London Borough of Southwark and local stakeholders to ensure its potential is maximised, having sat vacant for so long. This will be a development for the next generation, addressing social, technological and environmental challenges our industry faces moving forward.”
Alastair Perks, head of commercial development at CBRE said: “This is the first sale of a major mixed-use central London development site in quite some time, and as such it’s a real bellwether for the market. The landmark site at 18 Blackfriars Road provided investors with one of the last remaining opportunities to bring forward a major scheme on London’s South Bank.”
Cushman & Wakefield, Knight Frank and Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner advised Hines; CBRE and Boodle Hatfield advised the seller.
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