by Janice McKenzie
As the first lettings at St Martins Property Corporation’s London Bridge City are confirmed this week, the project is once again dogged by a strike.
Accountants Price Waterhouse have taken the 83,000-sq ft downstream tower of 1 London Bridge at £18 per sq ft with rent-free periods, while stockbrokers W I Carr Sons & Co (Overseas) better known as WICO, a subsidiary of the Exco International Group, are to occupy 30,000 sq ft on the top three floors of the upstream tower at the same address at around the same rent. The quoting rent was £18 per sq ft. The remaining 70,000 sq ft in the upstream building is under offer to an overseas bank.
Negotiations on the 312,000-sq ft Cottons building at London Bridge City are in progress and the tenants are thought to be Citicorp. Marketing of the third building, Hay’s Galleria, should start shortly.
Baker Harris Saunders and Jones Lang Wootton are letting agents on the development. Price Waterhouse were also represented by Jones Lang Wootton in the letting, while Debenham Tewson & Chinnocks acted for WICO.
When asked how they handled the potential conflict of interest of being both letting agents and acting for the tenants, Chris Peacock of JLW’s City office said: “This is quite open and well-known in the market. Both St Martins and Price Waterhouse asked us to do so. We have had a long relationship with Price Waterhouse and put them into Southwark Towers. We cleared it with St Martins and stood back as letting agents, taking our client’s position against St Martins and Baker Harris Saunders.
“We also stood back on other negotiations going on at London Bridge City at the time and put BHS into bat.”
Price Waterhouse expect to occupy their space in June. It is in addition to the 200,000 sq ft occupied by the firm in nearby Southwark Towers, which they first occupied as tenants of Peachey but are now the freeholders. WICO’s space will be ready in September and will house their international stockbroking operations. The agents say that building is on target.
However, the scheme has been hit by unofficial industrial action. Members of the Transport & General Workers Union and the Union of Construction Allied Trades & Technicians stopped work on February 3 and prior to that were not letting materials on to the site following threats of redundancy to 95 of their colleagues.
The strikers are employees of Southern Bricklayers, who come under the authority of John Laing Construction, St Martins’ management contractors. A conciliation panel met this week and concluded that the men should go back to work so that further talks could take place.
Brian Cann of St Martins commented: “Taking a broad spectrum, construction is on target. I don’t want to discuss strikes at all — it’s a matter between Laing and their workers.”
