Native strength: Alasdair Nicholls on expansion in the capital and beyond

Native Land chief executive Alasdair Nicholls remains confident in London’s ability to attract international investment. He tells Akanksha Soni how the developer is actively looking for more projects across the capital and is set to benefit from the Labour government’s growth agenda. There may be growing rhetoric that London and the UK is about to become less attractive to international investors as a new government hikes up taxes to fill a £20bn black hole, but Native Land chief executive Alasdair Nicholls doesn’t buy into it. As EG meets him on the 14th floor of the developer’s 220,000 sq ft Arbor building, the first of eight new towers to be built at the £2.5bn Bankside Yards development, SE1, he says he has never seen a London more international. And while he will admit that the capital has always been global in nature, he says until recently international interest has been pretty narrow, be that in terms of the investment coming in, the buyers snapping up flats here or the businesses setting up home in London. “Today, I can point to projects where we have sold to more than 23 different nationalities,” says Nicholls. “That’s the appeal of London. It remains transparent. It has gateway city haven status.” Like London, Native Land has also diversified its appeal over recent years, shifting from being a prime residential developer to a mixed-use developer. Bankside Yards is a case in point. The 5.5-acre development on the south bank of the River Thames comprises eight buildings, peaking at 50 storeys in height. It will deliver more than 650 homes but will also include more than 330,000 sq ft of offices (for now), 50,000 sq ft of retail and leisure, a 171-bedroom Mandarin Oriental hotel and some 3.3 acres of public space. Arbor, the first of the office buildings to open, is already 75% let to a variety of international and home-grown businesses, including the Carbon Trust, global maritime technology company Veson, multinational technology consultancy Wipro, industrial technology business Smiths Group, Merlin Entertainments, former FTSE 50 constituent Flutter Entertainment and law firms Lewis Silkin and Winckworth Sherwood. A second building, the 50-storey Opus, delivering 250 homes, will launch next year with completion expected in 2026. Reviewing relevance While Arbor is filling up well, being able to boast high sustainability credentials, including net zero carbon in operation, Nicholls says he is currently running the rule over whether all of the 190,000 sq ft of offices that are consented for the site will be brought forward. The changing attitude towards working patterns, tougher regulations around tall buildings and rising competition in the area for office space are all giving Nicholls pause for thought on whether to tweak the consented plans. “The original consent for this scheme probably goes back 10 or so years,” says Nicholls. “Our focus has been to systematically go around each building and bring it up to relevance from the point of view of both regulation and market demand. That is a continuing process.” Nicholls credits the firm’s success to its work across borders, particularly in being unafraid to pivot if need be. “As a business, one of the strengths we have in working with international partners is that we are very aware of wider real estate trends,” he says. “That includes minute details such as the kind of public area and amenity that we put in. There is a great cross-fertilisation of knowledge and anticipation of trends.” It is clear when talking to Nicholls that he sees the power in partnerships. Not only is the business’s work with its partners on Bankside Yards helping it anticipate trends, but partnership has helped transition the business from a development manager delivering prime residential to a fully fledged mixed-use developer. “Over the past 20 years, we have become a developer in our own right,” he says. “We have invested in all our projects, and we have a particular track record and expertise in co-investing with like-minded international real estate organisations that have an appetite and want to be seen in the market.” Call for stability That partnership mindset could set the business up well to capitalise on the Labour government’s growth agenda. Nicholls says Labour’s plans to bring the country back to economic stability, deliver 1.5m homes and boost business across the regions can only be delivered through public-private partnerships and a “coalescence of entities, assets, skills and capital”. “Everybody is focused on the forthcoming Budget and what that will throw up,” he adds. “I think what we probably need more than anything is a period of stability. And people are looking to the Budget to set the tone for the next 10 years. “If we can get that sense of stability into what we do from an investor point of view, that is going to give more confidence whatever the parameters are.” One area to bring stability is planning. Nicholls says the prolonged planning process is one of the major deterrents to the kind of large-scale projects that Native Land undertakes. He says the pace at which legislation and regulation changes, as well as what is demanded of developers from buyers and occupiers, is a challenge. “It takes an immense amount of time to get through that process, and then you find you have a building that you need to go back on to bring up to speed from a product or ESG perspective,” says Nicholls. “It’s a very sensitive process. You need to anticipate what you think will change, predict how to respond to the market, legislation, regulation, etc, and make sure that when you get to the end of that prolonged planning process you have a product you can deliver.” Despite the sensitivity, Nicholls doesn’t seem put off. The business is actively looking for more projects across the capital to expand its portfolio. “Our theory has always been that whichever submarket we go to within central London, we always want the best site within it,” he says. “Whether we pivot towards the next scheme being 100% commercial, mixed-use or 100% residential, very much depends on what the market throws us.” And as Nicholls looks back across the skyline from the 14th floor of Arbor, he knows that wherever that next big project for the business may be, and whatever its make-up might look like, its London address will make it appealing to international capital, whatever the current rhetoric. [caption id="attachment_1259294" align="aligncenter" width="847"] 100 George Street, W1[/caption] The Native portfolio Native Land’s portfolio is largely focused on London, with other developments in Edinburgh and Guildford, Surrey. The 1.4m sq ft Bankside Yards, SE1, forms most of its London portfolio, with a super-prime residential building in Marylebone at 100 George Street, W1, and a refurbishment project in King’s Cross at 105 Judd Street, WC1, where it is partnering with AshbyCapital to deliver 70,000 sq ft of lab-enabled life sciences space, accounting for the remainder. In Edinburgh, the group owns the New Eidyn residential development in the city’s St James Quarter. More than 50% of the flats in the 152-home scheme are now sold. And in Guildford, the group is pushing ahead with plans to convert a former Debenhams department store into a 310,000 sq ft mixed-use scheme comprising 185 homes, 21,000 sq ft of retail and leisure space, and an acre of green open space. Recently filed figures for the company reveal an income of £9m in the year ended 31 October 2023, up from £6.8m a year earlier. Images © Native Land