West London In Line For Office Sale That Could Reach £700M
The 1M SF White City Place scheme could soon have a new owner, in what would be one of the largest-ever office sales in West London.
The owners of the office development, which includes the London outpost of BBC TV, have appointed Eastdil Secured to explore options for the scheme which could include a sale, refinancing or bringing in new equity, according to CoStar. The scheme was developed by a joint venture between Canadian pension fund AIMCo, Japanese property company Mitsui Fudosan and UK developer Stanhope.
CoStar did not publish a value for the scheme, but recent transactions could give an indication. In March Moorfield and XLB sold the Aurora building in Ealing for £36M, a price of £700/SF, a West London record.
As the newest office scheme in West London, White City Place would be hoping to hit those levels, which would put the value at more than £700M. Only the £900M sale of Chiswick Park to China Investment Corp. in 2014 would top that.
White City Place comprises two groups of three buildings. WestWorks, MediaWorks and the Garden House, designed by architects Allies and Morrison, are set around retail spaces, restaurants and gardens. Totalling 566K SF of new office space, the buildings have been designed for modern life sciences, creative and tech businesses, including ITV Studios, YOOX Net-A-Porter, The Royal College of Art and Huckletree.
The other three other buildings at White City Place are the Broadcast Centre, Energy Centre and Lighthouse building, totalling around 400K SF, which are occupied by the BBC with 3,000 staff.
The joint venture has planning permission for another 1M SF of offices, which would not be included in any sale.
