St Paul's Tower | 101m | 32 fl | Completed

[TakeMeHigher]

Just to expand on gothicform's note, it is indeed possible for a developer to sue a purchaser if they fail to complete following a legal exchange. Deposits are not always exchanges though, so situations may differ.

But a developer/ bank / financier / rescuer (whoever it ends up as) who pursues legal action will be entering a world of pain, especially where they have changed the specification, failed to deliver, or where the purchaser simply doesn't have the means to complete, which many now won't. We certainly wouldn't consider it except in extremis.

A whole lot of projects have a whole lot of trouble on the horizon.

This particular development isn't yet fully sold and the values were extraordinarily high when times were good. Who would place bets on selling the remainder to owner / occupiers or investors for the forseeable future? Who would place bets on all those who have bought already actually taking handover?

Like all the other resi' projects in town this scheme is likely to need a rescue to bail it out unless the developer has extremely deep pockets. Even HA's are out of the game at the moment because they can't raise money.

If this downturn lasts more than 12 months the attrition rate will be huge and who knows what we will see. Half finished sites mothballed all over town? Immigration services running tower blocks as detention centres? Interiors knocked out and reconfigured to accommodate student accommodation? Don't laugh too soon, we're actually looking at all of these options right now.

[AdamBlade]

Has to be said though that this is worst case scenario, hopefully the economy will start to find its feet (stop getting worse) in the next 12 months and these kind of things could be avoided.

[gothicform]

thing is... we are looking at it reaching the nadir and starting to rise again probably at the end of 2009. thats over 12 months from now. the really stupid thing is we actually have a housing shortage and there's massive pent up demand for housing but the financial system that is funding it has fallen apart. there's a real market failure right now.

[larven]

Gutted re NM comments about this being the finished product. This was supposed to be the pinnacle of the city centre, the jewel in the crown of the Heart of the City project. This isn't good enough but quite frankly, under the circumstances I'm not sure what else could have been done.

[SheffCity]

Even something as simple as a different colour would have been a huge improvement. Who the hell outside of the 70's thinks brown is a good colour for a large building (with the exception of the Moor car park developers of course).

[dinp]

I'm starting to worry that we may have another Orion (birmingham) on our hands here in terms of appearance, but am crossing my fingers and hoping this doesn't look as bad as the early signs suggest it will

[SheffCity]

Can someone Photoshop a mock up from the images we already have to give an idea what more cladding looks like?

[KOWT2008]

I really don't think this building is going to look very good. Velocity looks much better.

[Hippogriff]

When you said:

Originally Posted by TakeMeHigher

But a developer/ bank / financier / rescuer (whoever it ends up as) who pursues legal action will be entering a world of pain, especially where they have changed the specification, failed to deliver, or where the purchaser simply doesn't have the means to complete, which many now won't. We certainly wouldn't consider it except in extremis

To me, that feels like purchasers who wanted to walk away without extra penalties above and beyond losing their deposit would then really be banking on the spirit of the law, rather than the letter of the law, if the [developer/ bank / financier / rescuer] did actually decide to push forward with legal action. I'm not sure that I, personally, would feel comfortable relying on the spirit of the law - after all, everyone who put their deposit down must have known that property prices / stock and shares / mortgage rates can go down as well as up! Caveat emptor, surely?

And this:

Originally Posted by TakeMeHigher

If this downturn lasts more than 12 months the attrition rate will be huge and who knows what we will see. Half finished sites mothballed all over town? Immigration services running tower blocks as detention centres? Interiors knocked out and reconfigured to accommodate student accommodation? Don't laugh too soon, we're actually looking at all of these options right now.

Is, frankly, extremely frightening... any one of those options, other than mothballing, immediately means, to me, that the interiors will suffer from the similar effects as what we think we're seeing on the exterior, i.e. radical cost-cutting measures that severely, and negatively, impact quality. When you warn us not to laugh too soon, because those options are being looked at, do you literally mean for this development?

[TakeMeHigher]

The funding plot thickens. Lehman (one of the funders) have gone pop as we know. It looks like Hypo (the other funder) is going the same way. This came out of Reuters a couple of hours ago:

FRANKFURT/BERLIN, Sept 28 (Reuters) - Hypo Real Estate (HRXG.DE: Quote, Profile, Research) is in urgent talks with German banking regulator Bafin and the finance ministry about solving a refinancing squeeze at the bank, sources with knowledge of the matter said on Sunday.

The bank, which lends money for property projects and to governments, is examining measures including the sale of assets such as loan portfolios to circumvent the squeeze, one of the sources said.

Hypo Real Estate, Bafin and the finance ministry all declined to comment.

"Everything is being done to find a solution," said one of the sources.

"There are a number of options," said another. "The bank could, for example, sell assets as Fortis (FOR.BR: Quote, Profile, Research) did -- Hypo has assets such as portfolios of loans."

Talks, which began over the weekend following a sharp fall in Hypo's share price, are continuing, the sources added.

Hypo is especially vulnerable to the freeze in interbank lending, which worsened after the collapse of Wall Street investment bank Lehman Brothers.

Unlike its bigger rivals such as Commerzbank (CBKG.DE: Quote, Profile, Research), Hypo does not have any customer deposits to fall back on as banks grow increasingly reluctant to lend to one another.

Hypo relies on this interbank market to borrow as well as on money lent by Germany's central bank to refinance roughly 50 billion euros ($73 billion) yearly, according to a company figure released earlier this year.

Most of the demand for this short-term unsecured refinancing comes from Hypo's business of lending to governments, who often require help bridging temporary holes in their budgets.

The bank lends to such clients as Italy, Japan, Tokyo and Istanbul among others, according to information on its website.

Short-term finance such as this often expires at the end of the quarter -- next Tuesday -- and this is placing pressure on Hypo to find a solution fast, one of the sources told Reuters.

Earlier this year, German watchdog Bafin had examined an emergency takeover of Hypo in the event that the bank ran into refinancing difficulties, sources familiar with the matter have said.

It had lined up Commerzbank as a would-be buyer, they said, but the plan was never used.

Hypo, with a market value of just under $4 billion, is worth just a fraction of Germany's flaghip lender Deutsche Bank.

Sheffield Council might be getting it back at this rate.

[unners]

Has anybody still got a picture of the model of the tower in CL sales office.

[Northern Muppet]

Originally Posted by TakeMeHigher

The funding plot thickens. Lehman (one of the funders) have gone pop as we know. It looks like Hypo (the other funder) is going the same way. This came out of Reuters a couple of hours ago:


Sheffield Council might be getting it back at this rate.

You beat me to it.

The interior shouldn't suffer that much because it has pods which were prefabbed before the crash.

The was a method in all this madness of the prefabbing - as the key decision maker at CLD new the market was going to fail so protected the design finishes as much as possible by having as much of the scheme prefabbed which meant early decision making. The secondary reason was to make it easier to build.

The cladding was the one area that the directors at CLD refused to listen to advice from both him and the project manager, hence they placed the contract with a provisional sum. This gave them more time to rape the design to save money hence what we are left with at present.

You can actually see elements of the original design on Gothicforms picture of Salford keys. The juliet balconies can just be seen.

I am aware of my reputation for doom and gloom (probably well earned) but this housing / economic crisis has a long way to go yet. More UK banks will fail and the US bailout will acheive nothing. We can all wipe out recovery in the housing market (stabilising) till at least 2010/2011.

At the moment all we can do is cross fingers and hope sheff gets finished.

[gothicform]

You can actually see elements of the original design on Gothicforms picture of Salford keys. The juliet balconies can just be seen.

thats why i posted it. talking in the past to the architect of the scheme, they did intend to have something more like the salford quays tower in terms of quality. conran and partners have designed some pretty competent buildings with their exterior finish being rather lush but i think this one is going to be a real blot on their portfolio which is a shame.

when i first spoke to them back in 2005 they had this to say.

We chose to glaze the main elevations with a bronze anodised curtain walling, the solid side panels are a light grey glazed terracotta rain-screen, while the lower volume on St Paul's Place is clad in local stone.

i was chatting with someone from wicona about the cladding in brief last week it was obvious this is no longer the case. as a condition of planning permission the council should have locked them into this... it's a real pity they didn't.

[hella good]

Originally Posted by unners

Has anybody still got a picture of the model of the tower in CL sales office.

yes but that didnt really show the cladding very much. although it did show the patterned panels either side of the windows.

Originally Posted by dinp

I'm starting to worry that we may have another Orion (birmingham) on our hands here in terms of appearance, but am crossing my fingers and hoping this doesn't look as bad as the early signs suggest it will

possibly but at least we wont have an Opal, Leeds

[Hippogriff]

Snippet from http://www.monstersandcritics.com/ne...credit_rescue_ today follows:

"Munich - German mortgage bank Hypo Real Estate has been rescued in a last-minute deal by a consortium of banks to resolve a refinancing squeeze it faced, the group said early on Monday.

Emergency talks yielded a result with a group of German banks extending credit that will tide the group over. Hypo did not name the banks or say how much of a loan it got."

[Hippogriff]

The address of Hypo Real Estate, found on a URL, made me chuckle...

Hypo Real Estate Holding AG
Unsoldstrasse 2
80538 Munchen
Deutschland

[arepeejee]

Interestingly, there's been no work on the cladding since Thursday.

[hella good]

Today was the first day ive actually seen the cladding in person. And im afraid youre probably going to hate me because i think it looks good. it looks smart and much more glassy than on the photos. I like the deep metallic brass colour. so im in support of this cladding now. of course on very close inspection it is obvious that it is cheaper than most cladding but apart from that i personally cant fault it. photos dont seem to do it justice.

there was a lot of cladding waiting to be fitted on a lorry. including some of the corner panels.

[dinp]

I admire and hope to share in your optimism Kyle, but i'm struggling to like it so far. Am willing to reserve final judgement til more is on though.... fingers crossed

[muddycoffee]

Well Done Kyle, as usual you manage to make the panels look "fairly" good with your photography.