This Week's London Deal Sheet
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 mike.phillips@bisnow.com.
Battersea Power Station’s new 200K SF workplace scheme, due for completion by summer 2023, has taken another step forward: It has acquired a name.
The Foster + Partners-designed building will be branded 50 Electric Boulevard and the letting campaign begins this autumn.
50 Electric Boulevard is intended to be a new lifestyle destination incorporating new homes, offices and retail as well as the new Battersea Power Station Underground entrance.
Knight Frank and CBRE’s central London office leasing teams are advising.
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Where 50 Electric Boulevard will be broad, a new residential scheme in Fitzrovia will be very narrow — just 16 feet, in fact.
RE Capital has secured planning permission for a 12-storey, 16 feet wide development at 52 Tottenham Street, located just off Tottenham Court Road and near Goodge Street station, London WC1. It will be redeveloped to provide four luxury apartments, including a quadruplex penthouse apartment with terraces in the heart of the West End — as well as an affordable workspace on the ground and lower ground floors.
There will be sustainability credentials, including the use of ground source heat pumps and smart Building Management Systems to reduce carbon emissions, as well as generous outside amenity provisions.
DSDHA is the lead architect on the project, SM Planning is the planning consultant, and Ensphere Group developed the sustainability aspects of the scheme. PBC acted as project manager.
SALES
How quickly things change: The former central London HQ of Land Securities is soon to become a Premier Inn hotel, following the purchase of 5 The Strand, London WC2, by brand owner Whitbread.
The site near Trafalgar Square was acquired from Indian developer ABIL Group, which acquired it in 2018 for a price in excess of £90M. The latest deal is reported to have been concluded closer to £200M, Estates Gazette reported.
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Railpen, the UK rail pension scheme, has bought a life sciences park in Oxford for £29M. The deal with vendor AEW UK REIT sees 75K SF of floorspace change hands at Eastpoint Business Park, IPE Real Assets reported.
Barings has agreed its first sustainability-linked loans against European real estate, including a retail and leisure park in Romford, UK.
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Developer Chancerygate has now forward sold all but one unit in its £32M urban logistics facility in southeast London.
The 120K SF facility as Sidcup includes 13 units. The final 6.2K SF unit is under offer. The units all have electric vehicle charging points and solar cells on their roofs that provide up to 35% of energy needs.
LEASES
French fashion brand JOTT is to take a 1.1K SF store in the Howard de Walden Estate’s Marylebone Village.
The fascia will open its first British store at 103 Marylebone High Street. The deal comes as O Pioneers, an independent ‘London born and bred,’ ‘slow-fashion’ label launches in an 850 SF unit at 76 Marylebone Lane, and St. JOHN Marylebone will open its doors this September at 98 Marylebone Lane, taking a 1.2K SF eaterie.
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Flex workspace is still in fashion in Clerkenwell. HB Reavis’ Ready to Work concept at Bloom Clerkenwell is now fully occupied following lettings to Corio Generation and Freshwave. A bespoke tech platform will help to enhance the appeal, the firm said.
Corio Generation, an offshoot of Macquarie’s Green Investment Group, has taken 6K SF, whilst connectivity infrastructure-as-a-service provider Freshwave signed up for 3.3K SF.
Bloom Clerkenwell is also celebrating the award of WELL Platinum (Core and Shell), BREEAM Outstanding and WiredScore Platinum — the UK’s first commercial building to achieve all three of the highest-level certifications.
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Out-of-town, flexible workspace provider Clockwise will open the doors to its 62K SF refurbishment of Bromley Old Town Hall on 12 September. It is Clockwise’s largest hub yet with 800 spaces including dedicated offices, private desks, a podcast room, a members lounge, café and terrace. For those who need it, the site also boasts an all-day dining restaurant and bar and a 24-room boutique hotel.
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Co-living is also finding its feet in the outer boroughs with DTZ Investors’ seed Folk Co-Living asset The Palm House, Harrow, fully leased in just six months.
The 222-unit co-living building launched in February 2022 and is the seed asset funded through COLIV Fund I, the world’s first large-scale co-living fund.
The eight-story, 87K SF building also features two terraces and a MasterChef style communal kitchen, dining and living space with panoramic views across London.
Residents can move into the building in as little as five days and sign up for flexible three- to 12-month lease plans.
FINANCE
Barings provided a seven-year fixed-rate loan worth £49M under its separate account with investor Phoenix Group, the UK’s largest long-term savings and retirement business, which as part of its investment strategy actively seeks opportunities to invest in sustainability-linked debt.
The loan is to finance the acquisition of The Brewery, a retail and leisure park in Romford, east London, by a joint venture between Schroders Capital UK Real Estate Fund and Immobilien Europa Direkt.
With the asset almost fully let, the loan will be used to improve the ESG credentials of the scheme.
The loans mark Barings Real Estate’s first sustainability-linked lending in Europe, a key area of growth for the portfolio.
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Investec Real Estate has provided Meadow Partners, the institutional middle-market real estate investor, with a 36-month, £11.2M senior loan, to support its acquisition of a prime mixed-use building on highly sought-after Northdown Street in King’s Cross, London.
The Squire & Partners, the five-story building completed in 2007, totals 14 apartments, including a penthouse, and 8K SF of office space. Meadow intends to refurbish and reposition the apartments, the entrance lobby and the building’s common areas to deliver a refreshed residential offering to the undersupplied King’s Cross market.
PEOPLE
Europa Capital, the pan-European real estate investment manager, has appointed Chris Miller-Jones to the newly created role of ESG director. This move is in line with its strategy of becoming carbon-neutral across its operational direct real estate portfolio and corporate emissions by 2030 and its non-direct emissions by 2040.
Based in London, Miller-Jones will be responsible for managing Europa Capital’s sustainability goals and objectives, and for strategy reporting to Head of Sustainability & Development Lynn Smith. He joins from BWB Consulting where he spent the past two years supporting the development of the company’s ESG strategy and its commitment to net zero. Previously he worked for Arcadis, WSP, ERM and KMPG.
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Topland, the privately owned real estate group, has appointed Anish Vora as structured finance manager. Joining Topland from specialist property lender Pluto Finance, he brings expertise in specialist deal structuring and credit risk analysis. Vora will work within the real estate finance team to source deal flow and provide flexible financing solutions across the capital stack.
Fraser Draycott has joined Topland’s development team, having previously worked at property investor M&G Real Estate. Draycott will spearhead Topland’s £850M existing development pipeline as well as sourcing and delivering the future pipeline.
