Canary Wharf confirms Olympics Committee talks
Paul Norman 06 October 2005 09:45

Canary Wharf Group confirmed this morning that it was in detailed negotiations to let space to the London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games at Barclays' One Churchill Place at Canary Wharf, E14.

Very good news if it is confirmed that LOCOG is about to take space at CWG. The LDA was also tipped to take space at CWG after Ken denied Palestra move.

Shares of Songbird Estate are up 5% on the news - 13% up since Monday, probably not only because of the anticipated pre-let as such but also because this pre-let is of particular importance for attracting to CW other firms linked to the Olympics.

here is the story from the wharf:
http://icthewharf.icnetwork.co.uk/thisweek/news/tm_objectid=16213147%26method=full%26siteid=71670%26headline=olympics%2dhq%2dstays%2dat%2dwharf-name_page.html

3,000 staff: WAOW what a boost for the Canary Wharf Estate!

OLYMPICS HQ STAYS AT WHARF Oct 6 2005

Games masterminded from Barclays

By Renato Castello

BARCLAYS will become the new engine room for London's Olympic dream, with Lord Sebastian Coe and his team to move from One Canada Square.

The Wharf understands that the London Organising Committee for the Olympic Games (LOCOG) will move from the 50th floor of the tower into three floors in Barclays' One Churchill Place headquarters.

The shift is expected to happen towards the end of the year or the start of 2006 to coincide with the appointment of LOCOG's CEO, which is anticipated for March.

LOCOG will move into floors owned by Canary Wharf Group (CWG) and will share offices with the Olympic Delivery Authority, which is responsible for the planning and construction of venues.

The committee must move to new premises to accommodate the expected 3,000 staff who will work on the Olympics between now and 2012.

At its inaugural meeting last Monday, October 3, the interim LOCOG board agreed to terms and conditions for the lease of office space on the Wharf.

On the same day, Barclays threw itssupport behind the Olympics by pledging £50million over three years towards LOCOG's operating budget.

The funding will enable the committee to begin planning for key Games programmes, including the Torch Relay.

A LOCOG spokesman would not comment on whether staff will move toBarclays HQ, but added: ``It is no secret that we are looking around for bigger accommodation. The plan is to move to another location later this year or early next year and that location will be on the Wharf. We want to be as close as possible to the Olympic Park.''

Barclays referred The Wharf's inquiries to LOCOG. CWG group gifted the London 2012 bid team the top floor of One Canada Square under an agreement that ended on July 6, 2005, coinciding with London's stunning Olympic victory over Paris.

The latest developments come as the deadline for the £500,000 LOCOG chief executive role looms.

The successful candidate will replace interim CEO Keith Mills, who will become LOCOG's deputy chairman when a new board is appointed in April Applications for the position - described on the London 2012 website as ``a role of great national importance'' - close on Monday, October 10.

Lord Coe and Mr Mills will select the CEO by the end of the year.

They will take up their seven-year role in March and be responsible for a £2bn budget and recruiting key people to the committee

Wel, glad I got the chance to visit whilst they were at the top of 1CS.

At least they're still close to Stratford and everything.

There's a news story in the Wharf about this today actually.

LOCOG are taking a fair amount of space (3 whole floors) in Barclays new unfilled headquarters building. This means that Songbird are quickly letting out their remaining space. With another Wharf building I think u/c and spec-built for BP's trading team the advent of Richard Rogers gorgeous Riverside Towers is only a matter of time :)

You beat me to it Jef.

If the Gherkin houses 4000 people and is 420,000 sq feet. Then 3000 people should require an office in the region of 300,000 square feet.

One Canada Square has 1.1 million square feet and is around 700 feet of offices. So 300,000 sq feet with a OCS sized floor plate corresponds to approximately 175 feet of offices.

OCS is a big floorplate though.... whatever..... if the floor plates are a similar size to the Gherkin then LOCOG will require an office around 400 feet high.

All depends on the floorplates and exactly how much space there is left at Barclays Hq.

The LDA (London Development Agency) will vacate its current occupation of Devon House, terminating all leases with the existing landlord. Further to the last Board report it was agreed that the agency should commence negocations with a view of entering long-term lease options on the three preferred options as listed below:
Preferred option 1. Palestra, 197 Blackfriars Road, SE1
Preferred option 2. 25 Canada Square, Canary Wharf, E14
Preferred option 3. 1 Churchill Place, Canary Wharf, E14
The two remaining options include the options of remainings at Devon House and moving to St Katherine's Way
They undertook a cost/benefit analysis: Palestra and 25 CS were identified as the most suitable options, achieving overall scores of 79.1% and 78.6% respectively. These are comparatively high when considered against the base option of Devon House which scores only 56.4%.
In September Ken Livingstone denied that the LDA was about to select Palestra as their new HQ. AFAIK 25 CS is thus now the preferred option for the LDA. In general terms, the agency would be required to take a minimum of 51,000 sqft based on staff head counts of 450. This ould require the agency to spread across 3 floors taking 100% of level 40/41 and 50% of level 42 in 25 CS - that is 57,408 sqft.
Think London, an LDA partner, has recently taken space at 25 CS. In addition, there are advantages for the LDA to be close to the LOCOG - which is rumoured to take space at 1 Churchill Place. Co-locations are also envisaged.

There is a good chance now that the LDA and the LOCOG will move their HQs in Canary Wharf thereby reducing the vacancy rate below 10 % - it was 11.4% in June 2005 compared to 13.5% in December 2004). This in turn could trigger the construction of some of the new developments in the pipeline - by the end of 2006 for these new buildings to be on the market by 2010.

Riverside is arriving ...

Another good news for Canary Wharf: State Street Bank has 320,000 sqft (29,700 sqm) under offer at 10 Churchill Place. The final design that meets State Street Bank requirements has yet to be announced. This new building will host their new HQ. The preliminary design was:

http://www.canarywharf.com/estate/estate/bp3/images/bp34_main.jpg

The construction date has not yet been announced as negocations are not yet concluded. Just a matter of time.

jef, in the render above, which one is 10 and which 20 Churchill Place?

AFAIK The one to the left is 5 Churchill place, the one in the middle is 10 Ch. Pl, and to the right is 20 Ch. Pl. These are preliminary designs however. Gothic and others forumers know more about these developments than myself.

Construction is announced to start in 2006 if negocations with State Street Bank are successfully concluded. No doubt it will.

Yes the one on the left is 5 middleis 10 and right is 20.

Bit odd that they'll only take 10 Churchill Place since the masterplan for the site was drawn up in the hope of one tenant taking both 10 and 20 Churchill Place because both buildings are linked.

I think Barclays are going to be in 5 Churchill Place.

Yep, it makes sense as BarCap has a massive office requirement that cannot be satisfied in the North Colonnade. afaik no office space has yet been put on offer.

Here is the site of BP3.

http://www.cityoffices.net/site/images/projectimages/london/bpsite.jpg

We can see where BP3 is from the following orginal masterplan. Note that DS2 hosts HSBC, DS5 hosts Citigroup, DS3 is 15 Canada Square (unbuilt; 650,000 sqft) and BP1 is 1 Churchill Place (Barclays). BP2 is 5 Churchill Place (unbuilt; 200,000 sqft) and DS4 is 20 Canada Square. BP3-4 have development capacity totalling in excess of 600,000 sqft. The two buildings were orginally planned to be linked as Johnny said, with BP3 the smaller on . Probably the two buildings will be separated with BP3 getting bigger to accomodate the 320,000 sqft required for State Street Bank.

http://skyscraperpage.com/gallery/data/500/8085bp3.jpg

A real shame BP3 couldn't be as tall as Barclays.

A real shame BP3 couldn't be as tall as Barclays.
yes that is a shame, they could allways apply to go taller, a 125m tower would look good and break up the 150m flat skyline :)

It probably will be taller than the original plans.
The joined BP3 & BP4 only had around 500,000 sqft between them.

I've just been back from a walk there. I paused a long time to look at the activity going on @ the future BP 3 and 4 site. The perimeter for the land reclamation has been set up and is ready to be filled. Last touches are being done to the access bridge that plunges into the site, it lands (well not really lands since the landfill hasn't started yet, just the metal retainers are set up) and ends right opposite the standalone tiny glass room that hosts the escalators.

Another render of the concept design of BP3. This building with this concept design cannot accomodate 320,000 sqft.

http://www.terryfarrell.co.uk/projects/projects_images/BPC.jpg

^I'm glad they didn't building that design for One Churchill Place.

You beat me to it Jef.

If the Gherkin houses 4000 people and is 420,000 sq feet. Then 3000 people should require an office in the region of 300,000 square feet.

One Canada Square has 1.1 million square feet and is around 700 feet of offices. So 300,000 sq feet with a OCS sized floor plate corresponds to approximately 175 feet of offices.

OCS is a big floorplate though.... whatever..... if the floor plates are a similar size to the Gherkin then LOCOG will require an office around 400 feet high.

All depends on the floorplates and exactly how much space there is left at Barclays Hq.

I very much doubt that all 3000 people will be working on the project at the same time. Some will be recruited much later in the process than others.

I found out this story released last June:

http://icthewharf.icnetwork.co.uk/thisweek/news/tm_objectid=15655576%26method=full%26siteid=71670-name_page.htmlCREW'S SHOW OF SOLIDARITY Jun 23 2005

By Renato Castello

A SLICE of American-built history is helping forge a new chapter for Canary Wharf as work begins on another piece of the estate's puzzle. The Solidarity, a 50-year-old crane named after the movement that ended communism in Poland, is driving in the new cofferdams on the southern side of Churchill Place, providing the bedrock for another office block on the estate.

The American-built crane was in action at the same Polish shipyard as Lech Walesa, the feisty moustachioed leader of the Solidarity movement who was integral in helping end the Cold War.

Garry Spencer, operations manager of General Port Services, which owns the crane, said: ``It was used for lifting heavymachinery in and out of ships being repaired in the shipyard.``She is totally unique and has some amazing lift capacity. She can lift 30 tons at a 25metre radius - they don't make stuff like that anymore.``We have to constantly upgrade it and keep it up to specification.''

The Solidarity will be on the Wharf until October removing the sheet metal cofferdams from the dock next to Clifford Chance and Lehman Brothers' buildings and ramming them into the dock bed at the Churchill Place site, also known as BP-4.This area is one of four remaining development sites on the estate and is earmarked for a 15-storey office block.

Construction will only start when a tenant is secured for the building. The cofferdams were integral to the rapidconstruction of the estate as temporary roads were built between their walls to allow heavy vehicle access. They also prevented water leaking into tower blocks during construction.

Between 1998 and 2003 Canary Wharf Contractors senior project manager Douglas Blackstock oversaw the construction of the estate south of the Jubilee Line station He said the ``highway'' created between the cofferdams was the ``life blood'' of the construction project.``We really couldn't have built it (the estate) without it,'' he said.


Now that State Street has 320,000 sq ft under offer , I presume work will start once the deal is successfully concluded.

Negociations have been successfully concluded. The announcement on freemansnews:
http://www.freemansnews.com/mainstory.asp?3108526

"Article 3108526
AFX - Monday, October 17, 2005

Songbird's Canary Wharf unit leases space to London Olympic Games committee
LONDON (AFX) - Songbird Estates plc's main operating unit Canary Wharf Group plc is to lease 98,150 sq ft of office space at Churchill Place to London 2012 organisers, the London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games Ltd."

I will post the stock exchange announcements if it adds some information.

Further details: LOCOG and the ODA will lease 98,150 sq ft on a phased basis on levels 17, 22 & 23 at One Churchill Place and, in accordance with this agreement, has today completed the lease of level 23 to LOCOG.