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.
Global Holdings, the developer, investor and asset manager of Global Holdings Group’s UK hotel and office portfolio, has secured planning permission to create the UK’s largest full-timber-frame, net-zero carbon office building.
Camden Council unanimously approved the sustainability-led designs by architect Piercy&Company to redevelop the site of the former Holborn Town Hall on the south-east corner of Gray’s Inn Road and Clerkenwell Road.
The project will deliver 95K SF of modern offices with eight floors of workspace, a communal roof terrace and yoga deck, and five landscaped terraces with views of the city.
The building will include a restaurant at ground level and a fully equipped active commuting hub.
DEVELOPMENT
GLi, a joint venture between KSP and Patrizia that aims to invest in assets in strategic locations across Greater London, has received planning permission for its second Park Royal site, PR2, a new prime sustainable warehouse.
PR2 adds to GLi’s existing holdings in the area, with its first site, PR1, pre-let to Classic Fine Foods. Other GLi locations include Charlton, Croydon and Mitcham.
The new Park Royal site will be redeveloped on a net-zero carbon basis and will be 100% electric powered, will offer fully equipped car and delivery van EV charging points, and will be built to accommodate future battery storage in line with tenant requirements. PR2 will also have biodiverse landscaping and rainwater harvesting.
FINANCE
Harwell Science and Innovation Campus has secured £300M to help it expand and build out new laboratory, advanced manufacturing and office space.
The finance facility was secured by the campus public-private partnership, a joint venture between Brookfield, the Science and Technology Facilities Council and the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority.
Over the next two years, Harwell will use the additional funding secured to build 440K SF of new laboratory and research and development buildings across the campus.
This will include Tech Foundry, 220K SF of advanced manufacturing space, and the Linear Accelerator Building, L^B, a laboratory building for starting and scaling science organisations.
The investment and development facility was provided by a consortium comprising Deutsche Bank, BNP Paribas and Axa.
DEALS
Pan-European property investor, developer and asset manager Kajima has acquired a 31K SF office development at 27 Soho Square, a prime seven-storey building multi-let to five tenants.
Originally constructed in 1985, the building has been refurbished to include new all-electric central plant.
The acquisition forms part of Kajima's strategy to identify commercial value-add opportunities in central London that exhibit the potential to provide prime office workspace with high sustainability criteria.
27 Soho Square was acquired from Federated Hermes, with Fineman Ross acting on behalf of the buyer and Harris Associates on behalf of the seller.
***
Land Charter has completed the sale of 124 apartments at Ford’s former European HQ in Essex, which forms part of its 330-home regeneration project in Warley.
The apartment portfolio has been purchased by Citra Living, a part of Lloyds Banking Group, for £35.7M, with an anticipated gross estimated rental value yield of 5.5%.
Allsop acted on behalf of vendor Land Charter, and the development includes one- and two-bedroom built-to-rent apartments. Amenities include a lounge, café, gym, shared workspaces, meeting rooms, a dining room and barbecue areas coordinated by a dedicated building manager.
The development also includes sustainable features such as solar panels and electric vehicle charging points, encouraging the use of sustainable transport.
***
Fiera Real Estate and Wrenbridge have announced the off-market acquisition of 14.8 acres at Heathrow from Stonegate Homes.
The business plan is to speculatively develop a Grade A urban logistics development with a gross development value of £60M.
This represents the fourth acquisition for the Fiera Real Estate Logistics Development Fund UK, which has a further £200M to deploy into similar logistics sites across the UK.
It plans a speculative logistics building of 110K SF across three units.
Fiera and Wrenbridge were advised by Regency Real Estate and Avison Young.
LEASING
Alantra has shifted its investment bank headquarters from Madrid to London.
The midmarket-focused investment bank has moved into a new 20K SF headquarters in the heart of the City of London at 25 Cannon Street, which will house around 180 employees as the Spanish bank looks to continue its expansion.
Alantra has chosen to shift its investment bank to the UK to tap into a centralised pool of talent, it said.
F&B AND LEISURE
Hackney Mare Street Market has expanded to King’s Cross with its largest retail, dining and coworking offering in London.
The second-biggest deal by space in the King’s Cross estate’s history, behind only the 20K SF Samsung KX experience store in Coal Drops Yard, the 18K SF, two-level Mare Street Market King’s Cross will open this autumn.
The space will feature eight retailers on the ground floor offering a mix of shopping and services, with a hospitality and leisure offer spread across all three floors. There will also be a café and coworking space, a deli, a restaurant and a bar, with indoor and outdoor seating for up to 700 covers.
***
Pan-European investment manager Mark has signed 12 new openings totalling more than 7K SF at its 140K SF Borough Yards scheme. Their arrival coincides with the opening of the development's next phase on 22 June, which will create a new pedestrian zone behind Borough Market.
The regeneration project already includes The Office Group, Everyman Cinema, Le Chocolat Alain Ducasse and Barrafina as occupiers.
The new tenants are Ace & Tate, After School Cookie Club, Amorino, Atis, Bancone, Hagen, Kitchen Provisions, Longboys, Lids, Malin+Goetz, Santa Nata and Yi Fang Tea.
Borough Yards is being delivered by investor and developer Mark, which has a €10B portfolio across Europe.
***
Contemporary Italian dining restaurant group San Carlo has signed a lease for a new Cicchetti at 172-173 Piccadilly with GPE. The restaurant will anchor GPE’s Piccadilly estate and will replace San Carlo’s existing Cicchetti restaurant at 215 Piccadilly.
It will double in size, occupying 7K SF over ground and basement floors across two units at 172 and 173 Piccadilly. The new restaurant will form part of the Grade II-listed Piccadilly Arcade, which is within a short walking distance to Green Park and Piccadilly tube stations.
San Carlo was founded in 1992 in Birmingham and is owned by parent company Harnbury Holdings. The restaurant group has 24 sites across the UK, seven of which are in London, including Alto by San Carlo at the rooftop, Selfridges, Isola by San Carlo in St Christopher’s Place, Fumo on St Martin’s Lane, plus Signor Sassi and San Carlo Cicchetti restaurants in Covent Garden and Knightsbridge.
PEOPLE
Property consultancy Knight Frank has appointed Josephine Jones as head of strategic capital, a newly created team that will sit within Knight Frank Capital Advisory.
KFCA is a Financial Conduct Authority-regulated business that provides integrated capital structuring and sourcing services for real estate investors across the UK and Europe.
Jones will join the firm as a partner in September. She is the latest senior hire to join KFCA following a period of rapid expansion, and will work alongside the established debt advisory team, headed by Lisa Attenborough, and the equity advisory team, led by Emma Winning.
***
Landsec has appointed Nisha Manaktala to its executive leadership team in the newly created role of chief data and technology officer. The role will report directly to CEO Mark Allan.
Manaktala joins Landsec from Hiscox Re & ILS, part of the Hiscox insurance group, where she held the role of chief technology officer. She has more than 20 years of technology leadership experience working in various technical roles across startups and global enterprises, with expertise across data, engineering and operations.
