Allen & Overy, a London law firm, have announced plans to consolidate their offices into a hub in central London. The firm will relocate 200 staff from their 64,500 sq ft Canary Wharf office to headquarters in Bishopsgate.
The Canary Wharf office will still be part-retained with the law firm using 21,500 sq ft on the top floor for meeting facilities – the remaining 43,000 sq ft of office space, spread over three floors, will be sub let.
The ‘7 More London’ building looks like all other London offices, but it has just been announced to be the most eco-friendly office space in London.
The building was designed with the environment in mind and was constructed in a collaborative act by PwC, Fosters, developer More London, an architect and an engineer from BDP and a several other consultants.
As a result Breeam sustainability assessors recently made the assessment that it was the most environmental-friendly building in the city.
Labour, under Tony Blair, promised that newly built buildings would be in-keeping with the surrounding area; however it now seems that this has not occurred.
In 1997 Sir Richard Rogers campaigned for a ‘better and beautified’ urban environment, and it seemed that Tony Blair was listening.
However within recent years London has seen a stream of constructions that are all about profit rather than a wholesome design. (more…)
By securing a £43 million investment from Brookefield Properties, Great Portland Estates are now in a comfortable position to go ahead with the construction of new London-based offices.
Brookfield Properties, which already own 22% of Canary Wharf, now have a 50% stake in the development at Bishopsgate.
Analysts, at JP Morgan Financial Services, have said that the development could cost up to £560 million and that, “The project was too big for Great Portland to comfortably do alone, in our view.”
As a result, without this financial backing the development may have been put on hold.
London offices have recently seen the largest ever rise in rental values as the property market finally starts to recover from the recession.
The office rental market was seriously affected by the recession because businesses became reluctant to spend money on renting new office space.
But now, after two and a half years of decline, there is finally a price increase in the rent of commercial properties.
The Financial Services Authority (FSA) have recently announced that they will be moving to new office space in London’s Canary Wharf.
FSA are planning on taking another 460 members of staff to increase their authority and supervision across the financial industry of the UK, including an extra 100 staff for the enforcement team. (more…)
25 Churchill Place, the last available plot on the Canary Wharf estate, is having a new design produced.
News International were meant to be using the site, but they pulled out leaving the site undeveloped. The design is to be penned once more by KPF and will feature a 108 metre tower, a reduction from previous plans meaning there will be 71,169 sq m of office space. (more…)
Royal Dutch Shell have announced plans to move to Canary Wharf for the next ten years, whilst the Shell Centre headquarters in Waterloo are redeveloped.
The oil firm are currently negotiating a ten-year lease on 200,000 sq ft of office space in 40 Bank Street, which is close to One Canada Square, so that they will continue to have a working headquarters in London during the redevelopment. (more…)
US investment bank JP Morgan is considering leaving their European headquarters in Canary Wharf in favour of other premises in the City of London area.
This will be a harsh blow for Canary Wharf’s hopes to be the main financial district of London. JP Morgan are currently reviewing plans for its headquarters and the consolidation of all staff and buildings into one development, which may be in City rather than Canary Wharf. (more…)
London Docklands is experiencing a major improvement in take-up rates for commercial space. In fact the area’s activity levels have increased by around 521%.
This success has been attributed to the lack of larger floor space elsewhere in London. Many businesses looking for larger office space are attracted to more suitable spaces in the Docklands area. There have been seven major lettings, including the London Organising Committee for the Olympic Games, who have taken 89,000 sq. ft across three floors at One Churchill Place. Other new tenants in the area include South Korea’s National Pension Service and MetLife. (more…)