SkyscraperCity Forum banner

100 Bishopsgate | City of London | 172m | 40 fl

Tags
london
1M views 3K replies 462 participants last post by  leew1974 
#1 ·
I think a new thread is needed for this one as the news has now been confirmed by the Financial Times:

Great Portland in plan for soaring 40-storey City tower
By Jim Pickard, Property Correspondent
Published: May 25 2006 03:00 | Last updated: May 25 2006 03:00

Great Portland Estates, the London property group, is poised to submit a planning application this summer for a soaring 40-storey tower in the heart of the City.



Subscription required to read the full story. No doubt GPE is serious about this project. It is a top property developer like Land Sec. and British Land.

Herebelow the story posted by Willjfox04 earlier this year:

The skyscraper, designed by architects Allies and Morrison, would join a cluster of proposed towers in a small area of the Square Mile. Allies & Morrison are reported to be planning a 43-storey skyscraper on a site neighbouring Foster's SwissRe tower. If confirmed, this would be the 30th proposal over 500ft for London. Architect Allies and Morrison is planning a £200m development including a tower that could go next to Foster and Partners' Swiss Re building in the City of London. The architect has worked with consultant Gardiner & Theobald to draw up plans for a 43-storey tower on a site that includes 61 St Mary Axe. Foster's 41-storey tower is located at 30 St Mary Axe. The developer, Great Portland Estates, has combined a number of its land holdings in the City to produce a two-acre site on which it aims to create an office and retail development. As well as 61 St Mary Axe, Great Portland also has holdings on nearby sites at Bishopsgate and Camomile Street.
 
See less See more
1
#1,605 ·
I don't get Brookfield. One of the world's biggest real estate companies who bought a load of ready to go London projects yet they sit on this site which is cleared and with a lot of the Pilling done knowing the office market will probably peak in a couple of years yet sit back and allow projects like mitre square to race ahead in the construction stakes which may very well hoover up tenants this should be getting.

It's the same at principal place. They have a plum site and a high spec foster tower yet sit back while other developers fall over themselves to get their resi towers sold and built.
 
#1,609 ·
I don't get Brookfield. One of the world's biggest real estate companies who bought a load of ready to go London projects yet they sit on this site which is cleared and with a lot of the Pilling done knowing the office market will probably peak in a couple of years yet sit back and allow projects like mitre square to race ahead in the construction stakes which may very well hoover up tenants this should be getting. It's the same at principal place. They have a plum site and a high spec foster tower yet sit back while other developers fall over themselves to get their resi towers sold and built.
Brookfield developer versus Brookfield the contractor?
 
#1,607 ·
Perhaps this is a bit simplistic of me and something my tiny mind can't comprehend, but why does London struggle to get large anchor tenants for any new developments?

As one of the most important cities in the world, you'd think that there would be hordes of companies queuing up, yet we consistently see projects being held up due to lack of interest. Why is this? Why does NYC have thousands of towers equalling millions of square ft of space, surely the demand for office space in NYC is not 100 times that of London?

The average city in the USA, Canada or Australia with much smaller populations (and seemingly less prestige and financial clout) tend to have several skyscrapers in the CBD, who is paying for all of these and where is the demand coming from? London, a global powerhouse, is struggling to build an unremarkable 172m office tower but this sort of building would just be filler in any major N.American/Oz city.

This is a genuine question by the way, I am actually that ignorant. What am I missing?
 
#1,610 ·
I think London, being more low-rise, is more spread out. And also, it has several areas with huge amounts of office space eg. The City, Westminster, CW.

Greater London had 26,721,000 m2 of office space in 2001.

Manhattan had 32,860,000 m² of office space in 2001.

Sorry for comparing Greater London with Manhattan, but that's the only figures I found on Wikipedia. So in 2001 New York had more office space, but as far as I'm aware from 2002 onwards London has had some quite good years, especially in skyscraper construction. (I don't know about NYC to be honest)

And also, you mention American/Canadian/Australian cities having more skyscrapers in their CBD. However, how many of them are office towers? For instance, I'm quite sure that there are loads of residential towers in Toronto, which is something that cannot happen in the City of London. It can in CW though, and thus the boom in skyscraper construction there at the moment.

I want to make an assumption at this point, I think it would be much cheaper to construct a skyscraper in Houston, for example, where there's so much empty space around the CBD, therefore land values are perhaps lower (guessing) and no demolition is needed. That's probably the case for quite a lot of American cities. This whole paragraph is merely a guess but think, for example, how much cheaper it would be for the developer if the land the Shard is built on was a parking lot next to 7 more parking lots, and therefore the land value was less and there was no 80m(?) building to demolish.
 
#1,611 · (Edited)
I was reading an article about available office space in london yesterday. There is apparently 9.2m sq m of office space currently under construction in central London. About 4.5m sq ft under demolition. Office availability is at its lowest point since 2007. Developers who built at the start of economic recovery are now benefiting from that as take up has risen over the last 12 months.

Unbelievably, there are only 10 Grade A office buildings available in central London at the moment and only five of those can offer more than 100,000 sq ft.

Even more unbelievably, only 1.1m sq ft of newly built office space will be made available in 2015! This building alone has more than half of the new space available in central London next year.

http://www.constructionenquirer.com...mo-work-surges-for-next-office-building-boom/
 
#1,612 ·
The difference lies in the fact that London has a far greater physical area than most new world cities. For example: It is comparable with metropolitan Los Angeles, which encompasses the 'cities' of Hollywood, Long Beach, Pasadena, Santa Monica, Glendale, Anaheim and many others. If one were to compact the office towers of downtown LA, this would be less than the office towers of London (examples would be to compact City/Canary Wharf/ Westminster and beyond).

It does seem bizarre that London has difficulty getting tenants, but, as has been pointed out already, London is far more extensive than most North American and Australian cities (downtown areas are small in comparison) and offices are dispersed over a much larger area (try walking from Kensington to Stratford, something that can easily be done in cities such as Sydney or Chicago!). But having said that, the City in question is picking up but even London is still experiencing the effects of the financial crash of 5 years ago.

Banks are now reluctant to lend as they did before 2007/8 so developers are unable to go ahead with a building without either a secured tenancy/pre-let or a partner, which has happened in the case of 122 Leadenhall and 20 FS. If Brookfield could get a partner in board perhaps things would move faster on this particular building. It is perfectly located, near major rail terminus, the insurance quarter and the Bank.
 
#1,613 ·
Yes, that's a very good point. There is certainly a sense now of cities with the city. As you say, Stratford is now emerging as a city with its transport infrastructure, commercially and new skyscrapers which wouldn't be out of place in CW.

Perhaps a good example of this is Transport for London's relocation from St James to Stratford. They were also considering CW but chose the Olympic Park in the end.
 
#1,623 · (Edited)
Agree, I read about a supply squeeze coming in the City 2016 onwards so this would be up and almost ready to go for then. The developer, I believe has a funds affiliate company which would be able to provide financing (if they considered it to be viable investment of course).

The answer, mentioned before is the prevalence of low rise office office buildings in London and the apparent preference of large tennants to take them - PwC, Bloomberg, Schroders, M&G.. the list goes on. The new towers rely on on take up one or two floors at a time by smaller firms (which there are many).

What interests me aout the the 100BG situation is that is consists of a substantial low rise element - one of the above mentioned firms could have selected this option for their 200-300+ K sq ft requirements surely!
 
#1,620 ·
Well, there are already several buildings taller than it within the same cluster, and even by London's standards 172m is hardly revolutionary. It wouldn't even make a dent in many cities worldwide, yet our beloved London with all its prestige and clout can't get it past the feasibility stage.
 
#1,628 ·
There has been something built on the rear part of the site facing St Mary Axe, you can see it on the aerial shot in their Twitter feed, does anyone know what it is?

 
Top