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Sky Gardens | Nine Elms | 120m | 35 fl

205K views 481 replies 124 participants last post by  thevladski 
#1 · (Edited)
A new 120m 35 floor tower in Vauxhall sneaked under the radar and went in for planning in July. Its 35 Storeys and just South of the Vauxhall roundabout. Its in the Vauxhall-Nine elms opportunity area which is going to be a new redevelopment hotspot in the next 10-15 year. Other projects planned in the area include the Vauxhall tower, a major redevelopment of Nine Elms market, a new US embassy & large developments from Ballymore & Arab investors as well as the planned Battersea Power Station redevelopment.

It might also mean some of the long dead projects such as the Bondway tower might resurface.

Architects are Cary Jones & developers are Fairbriar Projects,

Suprrise surprise the local association in Kennington is against the proposal as it doesn't contain enough 3 & 4 bed flats.... Oh yes, forgot to mention they are opposed to the height (excessive apparently).





















http://www.london.gov.uk/mayor/planning_decisions/2008/20080923.jsp#2
 
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#67 ·
Shame about the building with the clocktower (forget the name of it) as well. Think thats the site of the red brick tower now. There is some good 20th C stuff along here, most already gone now though. Still at least the old Fire HW is having the facade retained when its up for redevelopment.

Isn't there also a hidden dock on the north side along there somewhere?
 
#70 ·
was talking to the original architect about this who first saw the new designs on skyscrapernews. i think he's quite annoyed. there's a lot i won't say but his firm is embarrassed by being associated with carey jones plan apparently to the point he wanted me to make it clear they had nothing to do with it! that's fine by me, i don't think anyone will argue that this design is carey jones' finest moment.
 
#74 · (Edited)
On the Sky Gardens project - scaffolding has just appeared on the Tactica Solutions building which currently occupies the site - apologies for the dodgy photo taken quite late this evening - this is looking along Wandsworth Road towards Vauxhall, you can see the railway bridge at the left, and the tower is Covent Garden's Market Tower.



It has been empty for ages, and boarded up for more than a year (including for some time featuring a sign from the Royal Bank of Scotland, with the tag line "another dream becoming a commercial reality" - that one was removed soon after RBS more or less collapsed; I presume they are no longer the funder of this development).

The revised design goes to the Lambeth planning committee for decision next week - so the developers have presumably seen the committee report by now.

They'll be either demolishing this, or cleaning it up for a short let (as although scruffy the building is still sound). I suspect the former - as it wouldn't take this much scaffolding to spruce up the building. The Renaissance Rooms next door (famous for the roller disco) are still in business.
 
#75 ·
I think your right. Scaffolding to clean a few windows? ;)
 
#77 ·
Here are some photos from this morning, where all that's left of the poor old Tactica building - which has clearly reached the last chapter! - was a single storey wall.



Another angle here

Here's a view of the rubble, and the remaining scaffolding coming down -



And another



Going past the same location on the bus this evening, the building had gone - just a big heap of rubble. This clears up almost the entire site (I'm not sure if the yard at the back is part of the project, I'd imagine it is - but the single storey building there has not been touched yet).
 
#78 ·
Update: The most recent planning report for the tower (which secured approval for a revised design last week) is online here - with a helpful map of the site on the first page. It doesn't include the building right next to the railway line - in other words, the entire site for the tower is now clear for construction, and it has planning permission.

The big question now is - do the developers keep the freshly-demolished site on hold for a few years - or do they forge ahead?
 
#79 · (Edited)
Here's a picture of the cleared site. Hoardings have been put up by the demolition contractor (which include a small section of the wall of the old building, at the left), which look fairly medium-term, and the site has been deserted for a week or so.



It could stay like this for weeks - or years. The tower (including the recently revised design) now has full planning permission, and I presume they wanted to get the previous building out of the way as quickly as possible. Partly avoid paying rates on it - but mainly to avoid the it being taken over by squatters - quite a high risk in this part of London, and with the potential to be very expensive if they have a contractor due to start work at any particular date.
 
#82 ·
A year since I last posted here, absolutely nothing has happened, apart from two large advertising hoardings going up (and some more graffiti on the inside of the site). But noticed a piece by Peter Bill in the Evening Standard that reports a chat with Stanley Quek of Fraser Properties (who do indeed own the site) - here is a quote of some of the more relevant points -

Flying visit: Quek's London call
Dr Stanley Quek has amassed seven million air miles circling the globe inspecting real estate held by his company, Fraser Property in Australia, New Zealand and the UK. The 61-year-old Singaporean landed in London on Tuesday to pick up a prize from the Variety Club for doing Good Green Things. So there was an opportunity to chat to the former medic, who retains a lovely bedside manner. Dr Quek also found time no doubt to examine his 500-unit site in Wandsworth's "nappy valley" [this is the mostly-built Riverside Quarter, maybe stretching the definition of the Nappy Valley which is a good mile away in Northcote Road, but hey ho...] and ponder the risks of giving birth to a 34-storey tower in Vauxhall. [...] The property arm has a A$4.5 billion (£3 billion) development pipeline in Australasia and the UK. [... goes on to note that locals overthrew a proposal in 2006 to build towers of up to 28 storeys as the final stage of the Wandsworth Riverside quarter] Quek's revised plans [for Riverside quarter] are more modest, with a new phase of 121 apartments just launched. His 2002 development appraisal reckoned the flats would fetch £480 per square foot. Today, the doctor is looking for £700-£800. So scaling back won't hurt too much. More problematic is the 186-apartment tower hard by Vauxhall tube. "The market is fairly uncertain at the moment" says Quek

Frankly, it doesn't look as though Vauxhall Sky Gardens is going to fly off the drawing board any time soon. I'm vaguely surprised it hasn't been converted to temporary hire parking, given it is in zone 1 and very accessible, but juuust outside the congestion charging zone. One possibly relevant local development is that the site is directly opposite the potential new Nine Elms tube station, which has made the tricky transition from 'crazy pie in the sky' to 'more or less costed and possibly feasible transport project that might happen' over the last year.

Didn't realise the Riverside Quarter was under the same developer (the latter has actually worked quite well overall, in a low-key sort of way - all sold without apparent difficulty, as was its sister development on the Trinity Way).
 
#84 ·
Bump!

Nothing's happened for months here - but this morning, a ground investigation crew were on site with a smll drilling rig. It may of course be nothing - but this was the first sign that something was actually happening at neighbouring St George Wharf tower.

Here's a photo (which doesn't show a great deal to be honest - but this was busily doing something...) -


The giant buddleia in the background gives a feel for just how long this site has been mothballed.

I see this site all the time so will report back if anything more exciting happens...
 
#86 · (Edited)
Hmm!

This was back in June:
http://business.highbeam.com/410162/article-1G1-295326216/vauxhall-sky-limit-caddick

"Yorkshire-based Caddick Development is in talks with Frasers Property to buy a prirr development site in Vauxhall for around [pounds sterling] 20m, in what would be the developer's first foray into central London.

Caddick Development plans to purchase Vauxhall Sky Gardens, near Battersea, in a joint venture with C Group the new business venture set up by City Lofts Group founder Ross Mansoori-Dara.

The site already has planning permission for Vauxhall Sky Gardens, a 34-storey, mixed-use tower that will comprise 200 flats, 82,000 sq ft of offices and just more than 2,200 sq ft of retail.

The joint venture partners want to retain the planning approval …"

Edit: The sale did not occur. The project is still with Frazer Developments and the project is still on hold.
 
#88 ·
Bump (again!)

More activity on site: a fairly large drill is at work now - I presume doing deep soil samples, and far more heavy duty than the orange tripod from a few months back. I haven't seen a great deal of media reporting about this site, but someone is clearly planning something here...


Sky gardens tower by Swissdave, on Flickr
 
#90 ·
They put in a planning permission request that is still pending to reduce affordable housing from like 31% to 0% (link). Not certain if they'd need to wait until they had a decision before they started building (don't think it changed the design of exterior at all). With prices apartments are going for these days they'd probably make a profit even if the entire block was 'affordable' (which means 80% of market value).
 
#94 ·
There didn't seem to be any activity on the site earlier this week.

Seems strange they've started selling when they have a pending application to reduce affordable housing to 0% - you'd think that selling apartments would undermine their argument that the project isn't viable with any affordable units.
 
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