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

Camden

Estates Gazette reports that Euston’s £500m HS2 station set for makeover. Plans for the £500m HS2 station at the London Euston have has a makeover. New concept images show a revamped station with an angular facade, marking a significant departure from original designs released seven years ago. HS2 said the new designs are based on a less complex, more efficient station that would be built in a single stage. In October last year, HS2 confirmed the station would be scaled back from 11 to 10 platforms. The consortium which drew up the latest designs includes Arup, engineering consultancy WSP and Grimshaw Architects. Construction firms Mace and Dragados will build the project in a joint venture. The station, which is designed to target a BREEAM Outstanding rating, will be home to the largest concourse in the UK. Laurence Whitbourn, Euston area client director at HS2, said: “London Euston station is one of the most complex parts of the HS2 route… HS2 is absolutely commited to getting Euston.”

Property Week reports that American clothing brand Free People is expanding its presence in the UK, opening a new store on Hampstead High Street. The brand first launched in the UK in 2019, opening at 28 Floral Street in Covent Garden. Since then, the bohemian clothing brand has launched five more sites across London, including a 3,100 sq ft store on Regent Street. Its latest Hampstead offering will span 3,007 sq ft, with the group signing for a 10-year lease. DMA Property Consultants has let 27 Hampstead High Street on behalf of its client, the landlord, to Free People.

City of London

Property Week reports that London’s 22 Bishopsgate has appointed NewFlex to curate and manage its incubator and innovation workspace community at its landmark office. The space is to be called ‘The Exchange’ and will target start-ups, scale-ups and SMEs, offering 14,000 sq ft of flexible office and co-working space on level seven. This will be NewFlex’s most significant space-as-a-service project to date, aiming to create a bespoke environment that fosters innovation. Occupying the entire seventh floor at 22 Bishopsgate, which stands 62 storeys tall, The Exchange will also provide a members’ lounge with views across London, meeting rooms and events space, media suites for content production and a 60-seat auditorium that will host an ongoing programme of workshops and talks.

Property Week reports that The BBC’s pension fund has sold a 35,400 sq ft office building in the City of London to Hong Kong investor Chevalier International Holdings for £46m, reflecting a 4.3% yield. The 30 King Street building near Bank Station is let to Maples Teesdale, CIL Management and Bank Negara Indonesia among others and produces a rent of £2.17m a year. A recently vacated 4,316 sq ft top floor is expected to be relaunched to market soon. Christopher Liu, business development director at Chevalier, said “We are delighted to have added this centrally-located core asset to our UK portfolio and it offers a steady income stream to our UK investment strategy. “We continue to look for quality investments producing good income returns and with future capital growth potential.”

Property Week reports that Real estate investment manager Barings has purchased an 82,000 sq ft office building in the City of London from German asset manager DWS for £70.65m. Real estate investment manager Barings has purchased an 82,000 sq ft office building in the City of London from German asset manager DWS for £70.65m. The site at 25 Moorgate, acquired on behalf of the Barings Real Estate European Value-Add Fund II (BREEVA II), will be refurbished to provide ESG and wellbeing features including a rooftop garden. The site, which comprises 75,000 sq ft of office space and 7,800 sq ft of retail and food and beverage space across the ground floor and basement, is currently fully let to two tenants. Barings said the deal will reflect an initial yield of 4.8% and a capital value of £857/sq ft.

Hammersmith & Fulham

Property Week HFD Property Group has agreed terms with HSBC UK to refinance its flagship 177 Bothwell Street development in Glasgow. The green loan facility, providing funding of over £100m, requires the site to continue to meet a range of sustainability metrics. The developer has committed to achieving an Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) A score of less than eight – 45% more energy efficient than a standard A-rated building – and BREEAM ‘Excellent’ standard through a range of measures. Smart technology will be used throughout 177 Bothwell Street to reduce energy consumption and improve environmental performance, while the building’s energy will be supplied by a Scottish windfarm in South Lanarkshire. The development will house a variety of other features including 318 cycle spaces, electric vehicle charging points and touchless technology.

Kensington & Chelsea

Property Week Reports that BNP Paribas Real Estate has sold The Exhibitionist hotel in South Kensington, London, on behalf of a private trust client for £10.6m to an undisclosed buyer. The 37-bed freehold boutique hotel on Queensberry Place was sold for 15% over asking price, reflecting a net yield of just over 2%. It is the first time the freehold of the property has been sold for over 75 years. The hotel is let on a triple net lease for a further 15 years, expiring March 2037 with four-yearly upward only rent reviews. It generates a current annual rent of £237,500. Richard Talbot-Williams, senior director of hotels at BNP, said: “Investor sentiment towards rarely traded prime London hotel assets has remained extremely robust and durable through the pandemic period, a time during which there has continued to be a very limited supply of ‘proceedable’ hotel investment opportunities.

The Independent reports that Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich has been sanctioned by the UK government, placing the club’s future in limbo. The Russian-Israeli billionaire has owned Chelsea since 2003, but he put the club up for sale last week amid the threat of being sanctioned following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The government’s “oligarch taskforce” has set about targeting those with links to the Kremlin and has sanctioned Abramovich due to his ties with Russian president Vladimir Putin, as well as his stake in the company Evraz PLC, which has been “potentially supplying steel to the Russian military which may have been used in the production of tanks”.

Tower Hamlets

Property Week reports that The London Fire Brigade (LFB) is investigating a major fire at a block of high-rise flats and offices in Whitechapel. Dozens were evacuated from the Relay Building in Whitechapel High Street on Monday after flames could been seen fanning out of the east London tower block. Some residents have since reported not hearing any fire alarms sounding on the floors of their flat during the fire. One told the BBC that residents had complained several times prior to the fire about both the alarms and a ‘stay-put’ policy, the same policy used at Grenfell Tower. Local MP Rushanara Ali said on her website: “I am deeply concerned that Tower Hamlets has experienced yet another fire. Despite constant warnings to government of the need to deal with fire-safety concerns, there remain major gaps that are yet to be addressed.

Property Week reports that ASK Partners has handed H.I.G. Realty Partners £22.5m to build the latter’s life sciences portfolio in London, Property Week can reveal. The senior loan facility, announced today, is to fund the acquisition of a 2,175 sq ft lab in Whitechapel, east London, where H.I.G. intends to build a lab-enabled life sciences building. The site will form a part of a JV between Queen Mary University, Royal London Hospital and Barts Life Sciences, aiming to achieve a combined 1m sq ft of London-based lab-enabled space by 2030. “We were delighted to provide financing to H.I.G. Realty Partners and Lateral London for the acquisition of this site. It is an excellent investment opportunity with the loan strongly underpinned by the site’s existing use as office space,” said Joshua Weinstein, ASK’s head of institutional markets.

Property Week reports that The UK’s highest gym, at 571 ft in the sky, has launched to residents at Landmark Pinnacle, the UK’s tallest residential tower in Canary Wharf, London. Residents will have access to a high-specification gym, which is managed by residential fitness company Educated Body.The gym features equipment including cardio machines, free weights and a designated yoga and Pilates studio. Phillippa Hardman, founder of Educated Body, said: “Landmark Pinnacle offers the best residential gym views in London with an offering competing with five-star hotels and spas. “Residents can meditate in the clouds and draw on London’s iconic skyline for motivation. The experience is nothing short of spectacular and comparable to high-rise gyms found in New York and Chicago, making it truly unique for London.”

Westminster

Property Week reports that Boparan Restaurant Group (BRG) has plans to bring its Slim Chickens brand to London’s Cambridge Circus, Property Week can reveal. The group will open the American casual dining venu at 1 Cambridge Circus, the site of a former Shake Shack that closed last summer. The site will open in the coming weeks and will cover 3,874 sq ft space over two floors. Slim Chickens currently has 14 locations across the UK, including London, Birmingham, Cardiff, Manchester, Newcastle, Bournemouth, Southampton, Exeter and Bristol. Paul Gilligan, property director, BRG, said: “Slim Chickens is thriving in the UK and we’re incredibly excited by the launch of this flagship site in the West End. At Slim Chickens, our food is cooked fresh to order and everyone is welcome.

Property Week reports that Welput, the central London office fund managed by BentallGreenOak (BGO), has recapitalised its ownership of 105 Victoria Street. A £400m development finance facility, around £200m of which comes from Allianz Real Estate, will partly fund construction of the scheme, which is due to commence this year and aims to complete in Q2 2026. The company also revealed that Skanska had been appointed as the principal contractor for the scheme, which will comprise 450,000 sq ft of world-class workspace, including 5,500 sq ft dedicated to incubator and affordable space, more than 30,000 sq ft of retail space and almost 30,000 sq ft of green space and terracing. The company today said the Public Sector Pension Investment Board (PSP Investments), one of Canada’s largest pension investment managers, has co-invested alongside existing Welput investors in the development.

Property Week reports that Whitbread, the owner of the Premier Inn, has opened the largest central London Premier Inn hotel in Paddington. The 393-bedroom Premier Inn at North Wharf Gardens features Premier Inn’s latest standard rooms, enhanced Premier Plus rooms and Bar + Block steakhouse restaurant. Premier Inn London Paddington is the first of three new hotel openings in the Paddington and Marylebone catchment for Whitbread as it continues to grow its brands. Alex Flach, UK development director at Whitbread, said: “We opened more than 30 new Premier Inn and hub by Premier Inn hotels across the UK and Ireland during our 2021/22 financial year. We are continuing this impressive rate of growth this financial year with exciting new openings in city-centre locations like Paddington in central London, but also in popular regional cities and leisure-led locations across the country.

Estates Gazette reports that Vogue magazine publisher Conde Nast is looking for a new office in London, while it lays the groundwork for a potential sale of its Mayfair headquarters after more than six decades at the location. The publisher which also produces GQ, Tattler and Vanity fair, has appointed Knight Frank to help it find up to 100,000 sq ft in Central London. It is believed to be considering space in Midtown, as well as options near another of its offices, the Apeldhi on the Strand, WC2.

Estates Gazette reports that Westminster rejects Unite’s 768-room Paddington scheme. Unite Student suffered a setback on its controversial Baltic Wharf student housing scheme in Paddington this week, after Westminster City Council threw out revised plans. The proposed project, which had already been scaled back from 843 to 768 student rooms, would have involved demolishing a builders’ merchant on Harrow Road, W2, and building a series of blocks ranging from six to 20 storeys. But the scheme, which recorded more than 100 objections, was refused unanimously. Planning officials said it would have a “significant negative impact” on the amenity of residents next door, and ” the benefits are not considered to outweigh this harm”.

General

Property Week reports that The British Property Federation has called on the government to limit exemptions to inclusion in the proposed register of overseas owners of British property, amid mounting concerns over potential loopholes in the legislation. As Property Week went to press, the Economic Crime (Transparency and Enforcement) Bill, which the government said would clamp down on “dirty” Russian money by giving the ultimate owners of UK property six months to reveal themselves, had just had its second House of Lords reading, following its second and third readings in the House of Commons on Monday. The bill, first promised by David Cameron’s government in 2016, had its first reading in the Commons on the previous Monday and initially included an 18-month grace period.

Property Week reports that Gove warns housebuilders remediation pledges ‘falls short’ of expectations. The secretary of state for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities has written to the Home Builders Federation (HBF) to warn it that the proposals that have so far been put forth by housebuilders to address the issue of remediating tall buildings with dangerous cladding “falls short” of what the government expects. While Michael Gove said he welcomed the “commitment that developers will fund the remediation of fire safety defects in buildings they had a role in developing above 11 metres, without drawing on the Building Safety Fund, and will make refunds to in respect of buildings for which awards have already been made” he said that the current proposals tabled by housebuilders in negotiations with his department “falls short of full and unconditional self-remediation that I and leaseholders will expect us to agree”.

Property Week reports that Flexible office giant IWG has entered a £270m merger with a digital assets group to create a new workspace platform. Alongside its annual figures, which showed the group formerly known as Regus had slashed its operating losses last year, IWG said it was merging with The Instant Group, which provides digital marketing and workspace solutions to nearly half of FTSE 100 firms. IWG added it will invest a further £50m into the company. Mark Dixon, chief executive of IWG, said: “Hybrid working is now an established model and businesses of all sizes are planning for a hybrid future. The shift from fixed workspace to flex is now accelerating and irreversible.”

Property Week reports that AustralianSuper is looking to expand into continental Europe following its purchase of a 50% stake in London’s Canada Water masterplan, according to the company’s senior property investment director for the UK. Speaking to Property Week this week after the company announced the purchase, which creates a 50:50 JV with British Land on the 53-acre regeneration project (pictured), Paul Clark said the firm was well positioned to scope out “deals at scale” in several EU cities in the next four to five years, including Berlin, Paris, Amsterdam and Stockholm. “We’ve got two things in our favour: scale and time. The average AustralianSuper member is a little over 40 and only about 3% of our members are in retirement,” he said. “We have around A$260bn [£140bn] of capital in the business and we’re heading towards around A$500bn, so expect whatever we do to be significant.”