This Week's London Deal Sheet
The Deal Sheet is a weekly compilation of Greater London and beyond's biggest leases, sales, financing deals, construction updates and personnel moves. Have news you’d like to submit? Email mark.faithfull@bisnow.com.
HWKN Architecture, led by Matthias Hollwich, will be the designer for one of the three buildings at Canada Water Dockside. The 4.5-acre development by Art-Invest Real Estate UK is intended as the commercial quarter at the heart of the wider Canada Water regeneration area.
HWKN is making its UK architectural debut at Canada Water Dockside, working in collaboration with the scheme’s master planner, Bjarke Ingels Group, to design a building that includes workspace with a new, publicly accessible ground floor providing places to "eat, drink, sit and relax".
HKWN’s recent projects include an all-timber building in Washington, D.C., the tallest timber building in the American Northeast, and Die Macherei, a collection of urban office buildings in Munich, also developed with Art-Invest Real Estate.
The building HWKN is designing is part of Canada Water Dockside’s collection of three headquarters buildings, providing circa 1.5M SF of Grade A, sustainability-certified workspace for up to 10,000 people, including over 100K SF of offices for small businesses, alongside community spaces and other amenities across the ground floor.
Art-Invest secured resolution to grant outline planning permission for the scheme in March 2022, and is currently working on a series of reserved matters applications. It is anticipated that Art-Invest will start enabling works in Spring 2023.
LEASING
Canary Wharf has signed Citibank for a further circa 94K SF at its 40 Bank Street tower, with the U.S. bank taking floors five, six, seven, nine and 10.
In March Citibank became the first tenant in the space when it signed for an initial 94K SF feet across floors eight, 12, 13, 14 and 15 in a deal for a scheme that offered fully fitted and managed office space as part of Canary Wharf's MadeFor platform.
Citi is moving to 40 Bank Street while its UK and EMEA headquarters, Citi Tower at 25 Canada Square, also on the Canary Wharf estate, is undergoing a £100M refurbishment.
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British Land and Singapore sovereign wealth fund GIC have secured an extension to the lease for French banking giant Crédit Agricole for its UK headquarters at Broadwalk House.
The bank last recommitted to the space in 2017 when it became the first major European bank to say it was keeping its London home following the Brexit vote, and Crédit Agricole has now signed a 10-year lease of 140K SF at the 290K SF building, representing one of the largest deals in the City of London this year.
The six-year extension to its existing lease, which had a break option in July 2019, also includes an option for additional space in the building, where rents have been around £50 per SF.
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Online athleisure brand Gymshark is to open its flagship store at 165 Regent Street on 29 October in an 18K SF, two-level unit previously occupied by U.S. fashion retailer J.Crew.
Solihull-based Gymshark has negotiated a 10-year lease with The Crown Estate and will use the store as both a physical retail space and as a venue for gym classes, tutorials and community events.
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A two-week inquiry is underway to consider plans to demolish the 90-year-old Marks & Spencer store at the Marble Arch end of Oxford Street. The department store retailer has warned that it may exit Oxford Street if permission is not granted and recently won support from neighbour Selfridges for its proposals.
PEOPLE MOVES
The Crown Estate has made some additions to its London development team.
Kristy Lansdown has been appointed as head of development, James Atherton as development director and Andy Goodenough as commercial and cost director.
Lansdown will be leading the development team in London, reporting directly to Simon Harding-Roots, managing director for London, and Atherton will be responsible for development projects across the Regent Street portfolio. Goodenough has also joined the team to drive forward project procurement, contracting and commercial management for the London team.
Lansdown previously worked at Lendlease Europe, most recently as project director for two of Lendlease's flagship projects: Elephant Park and The International Quarter London. Atherton joined after 15 years with Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield where he was development director responsible for retail, office, hotel and land management at Westfield Stratford City. Goodenough joined from Qatari Diar, where he was commercial director.
INVESTMENT
TPG Real Estate Partners, the dedicated real estate platform of $127B alternative asset firm TPG, has closed its latest opportunistic real estate equity fund with $6.8B in commitments.
The new fund, TPG Real Estate Partners IV, was formed as a continuation of the firm’s opportunistic fund service with a focus on “thematic investing in property-rich platforms” and strategic portfolio aggregations in Europe and the U.S. The fund series has invested roughly $9B since inception.
“We are focused on investing behind themes backed by either long term secular trends or dislocations caused by capital market volatility. With the close of this fund we have more dry powder than at any other time in TPGRE’s history,” TPG Real Estate partner and co-Head Avi Banyasz said.
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An unnamed Singaporean buyer has bought and simultaneously let six apartments at One Bishopsgate Plaza, with a total gross sales value of just over £9.5M.
The new luxury residential tower is arranged across 20 levels above a new Pan Pacific hotel, the first in Europe, and the Sky Residences offer access to hotel services below and private amenities above.
