A weekly round up of the latest property news from the central London boroughs

Camden 

PW reports that WeWork has announced plans to refurbish Almancatar’s 125 Shaftesbury Avenue to create its 21st flexible workspace location in the UK. The site situated in Soho, London covers 140,000 sq ft with nearby transport links including the upcoming Crossrail station at Tottenham Court Road. With this latest location, WeWork has accounted for 7.13% of total central London take-up in the last 12 months, and ranks third across central London occupiers on take-up over the last 10 years. It comes one week after the company unveiled Allied London’s No.1 Spinningfields in Manchester as its first location outside of London.

PW reports that Fashion retailer Jigsaw has announced it will open a new store in King’s Cross, in Three Pancras Square on King’s Boulevard.The 2,500 sq ft shop will open later this year and will form a key part of the fashion and lifestyle mix on the street nearest the station, where Nike opened in 2016. Further tenant announcements are to follow in the coming months according to developer Argent. King’s Cross is Jigsaw’s 87th standalone UK location and follows the news that fashion and lifestyle store 18montrose has also chosen to open at King’s Cross later this year, in the Coal Drops Yard complex. When it opens fully in 2018, Coal Drops Yard will be London’s newest shopping street.

City of London 

PW reports that Commerz Real, the property fund owned by German finance giant Commerzbank, is set to put Athene Place in London’s Midtown on the market. GM Real Estate and Savills have been appointed to seek offers of more than £120m for the 147,479 sq ft scheme, which provides office and retail space over basement, ground and eight upper floors. The building is located opposite Goldman Sachs’ new European headquarters and within the Deloitte campus at New Street Square, and is held long leasehold at a peppercorn rent with an unexpired term of 135 years. A deal at around the asking price will result in Commerz Real realising a £20m-plus return. The office space is occupied by Deloitte, on a lease that runs until March 2027. The Deloitte lease is subject to an outstanding rent review from March with a significant uplift anticipated on the £5.5m annual rent (£38.64/sq ft) it currently pays.

PW reports that Workspace Group has completed the £158.7m acquisition of Salisbury House in the City of London.The company, which provides flexible office space throughout London, revealed it was in talks for the site at 28-31 Finsbury Circus in a statement to the London Stock Exchange earlier this month.The Grade-II listed building is held on a long leasehold from the City of London Corporation, and close to the new Crossrail station at Moorgate, as well as Liverpool Street and Bank stations. The building has an Edwardian façade and four entrances providing direct access to both Finsbury Circus and London Wall. Salisbury House has 240,000 sq ft of net lettable space and is currently 90% occupied with 105 customers. It is being acquired at a capital value of £661.10/sq ft, and a net initial yield of 5%. The property generated net rental income of £8.1m over the last year.

Hammersmith & Fulham 

PW reports that Romulus Construction is closing in on a deal to buy Hammersmith office building 3 Shortlands for a price in excess of £60m. It has agreed a deal with Aviva Investors to buy the 10-storey block, which could be redeveloped to create a much larger scheme. The 181,419 sq ft office building, which was put up for sale in February, sits on a 1.25-acre site fronting Hammersmith Road. Much of the office accommodation is vacant but the lower floors are let to Virgin Active health club, which includes a gym, a 20m indoor swimming pool, a spa and a sauna, until 2022. Other occupiers include flexible office provider Orega and financial adviser Neptune. The total passing rent is almost £2.2m.The scheme offers a number of potential redevelopment opportunities subject to planning. These include the refurbishment and repositioning of the offices to increase the floorplates by a total of up to 53,000 sq ft, as well as the extension of the building to create an enlarged scheme of 320,000 sq ft. The scheme could also be changed to residential, hotel or student accommodation use.

Lambeth 

PW reports that CBRE Global Investors (CBRE GI) bought Park Plaza London Waterloo hotel, in London in a £160m club deal for a number of its pension fund investors. The PPHE Hotel Group have committed to a sale and long-term leaseback, with an initial rent of over £5.6m, which will be reviewed annually to the Retail Price Index. The Park Plaza hotel is a newly completed full-service hotel with 494 bedrooms. The hotel is equipped with restaurants, swimming pool, fitness centre, spa and business centre. Michael Ness, head of UK at CBRE GI, said: “This bespoke deal has been created as a club deal to suit the specific requirements of ten of our pension fund clients. These clients are seeking long-term investments with inflation-linked income derived from prime assets, and we would expect this to be held long-term”. 

Southwark 

PW reports King’s College London has acquired 25,300 sq ft of offices at 5-11 Lavington Street on the Southbank. The new accommodation on the third and fourth floor of the building will house the college’s IT department, which is relocating from Drury Lane in Covent Garden. KCL has taken a new 15-year lease – with a mutual break option at the 11th year – at an annual exclusive headline rent of £1.4m which equates to just over £55/sq ft. Union Street Partners and Masons Property Advisors City acted on behalf of the landlord, Europoint Centre (London). King’s College London was unrepresented.

Tower Hamlets 

PW reports Chinese firm Cheung Kei Group is set to make its debut UK buy with the £410m acquisition of 20 Canada Square in Canary Wharf. The Shenzhen-based group, which is headed up by Hong Kong billionaire Chen Hongtian, has agreed a deal with Brookfield to buy the BP-let building for a price that reflects a net initial yield of 5.35%. The 556,000 sq ft office building, which is predominantly let to BP and McGraw Hill International – which both occupy around 243,000 sq ft in the building – was put up for sale through JLL in March. It is thought Hines, in a joint venture with HSBC Alternative Investments, and Saudi-based investor Sidra Capital also bid for the 12-storey asset but were both some way off Cheung Kei Group’s offer.The Skidmore, Owings & Merrill-designed building was developed by Canary Wharf Group in 2003 and was acquired by Canadian investor Brookfield for £326.4m in 2005. Savills advised Cheung Kei Group on the deal.

Wandsworth 

PW reports that the mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, has reacted furiously to Wandsworth Council’s decision to back Battersea Power Station Development Company’s plan to cut affordable housing on the site from 636 to 386 homes. In a strongly worded statement released today following the council rubber stamped the plans, Khan said: “I am furious over Wandsworth Council’s planning committee’s decision last night to back a wholly unacceptable cut in the amount of affordable housing at Battersea Power Station. “If we are serious about tackling London’s housing crisis, we need all councils in London to be pushing in the same direction. This decision has let Londoners down. “As this was a change to planning consent granted under the previous mayor, I have no formal planning powers to stop it. However I have made formal representations to Wandsworth Council urging them to withdraw the decision, and to work with me to secure the absolute maximum amount of affordable housing possible.” Following the decision, the development company will now progress plans that will only offer 386 affordable houses within the 4,239 home scheme. Earlier this week it stated “the entire project may become financially unviable if it is forced to stick to the 2011 promise to include so many affordable homes”. The remaining 250 affordable homes would only be provided following an “end of scheme review”. 

Westminster 

PW reports that The family behind London restaurants Roka, Oblix, Zuma and The Arts Club have acquired a site on London’s Great Titchfield Street to launch a new Greek restaurant called Meraki. Peter Waney, who co-founded Roka and Zuma with brother Arjun, has taken a 15-year lease on the 4,600 sq ft unit at 80-82 Great Titchfield Street at a rent of £140,000 per year. Waney will open a 150-cover Greek eatery including two alfresco terraces and a bar. Greek-born Dimitrios Siamanis, who has cooked at Michelin-starred restaurants Zafferano in Belgravia, The Square in Mayfair, and Alain Ducasse’s The Grill at the Dorchester Hotel, will be Meraki’s head chef.

PW reports that British Land has let three floors at 4 Kingdom Street in Paddington Central to software company Finastra, leaving the office space 89% let or under offer. Finastra has signed a ten year lease to occupy the first, second and third floors at 4 Kingdom Street totalling 42,400 sq ft. The company, formed in 2017 by the combination of Misys and D+H, develops software for financial institutions. The announcement follows the formal launch of 4 Kingdom Street on 28 June after it reached practical completion in April 2017. Providing 147,000 sq ft across nine floors, it is the first building to be developed by British Land at Paddington Central. The announcement follows the formal launch of 4 Kingdom Street on 28 June after it reached practical completion in April 2017. Providing 147,000 sq ft across nine floors, it is the first building to be developed by British Land at Paddington Central. British Land acquired part of the Paddington Central office campus for £470m in 2013 and completed the purchase of One Sheldon Square for £210m in 2015. Since then, the company has invested nearly £100m in transforming of the public realm and the construction of 4 Kingdom Street.

PW reports that The Crown Estate and Oxford Properties has signed up investment firm TowerBrook Capital Partners to their St James’s Market scheme in London’s West End. TowerBrook is moving its UK headquarters to the scheme and has taken 16,500 sq ft on the third floor of 1 St James’s Market. The latest deal brings St James’s Market to 75% let and follows recent lettings to two international firms, including energy company SOCAR Trading, which is relocating their UK headquarters at 2 St James’s Market. In total, 191,500 sq ft of the 260,000 sq ft development has been let, including more than 146,500 sq ft of office space, including the global headquarters of both Formula 1 and The Carlyle Group, all seven restaurants and five of the six retail stores.