Another tower deal for the City
Another deal has been struck to get a City skyscraper built – British Land has agreed heads of terms with Oxford Properties, the property arm of the Canadian OMERS fund group, to build the tower at Leadenhall in the City known as the Cheesegrater. British Land had said back in May that it was considering restarting work on the Leadenhall Building, which has been designed by Rogers Stirk Harbour & Partners and has 47 storeys (artist’s impression here from the British Land website).
The tower will provide 610,000 sq ft of office space and will have a four-storey landscaped public space at its base, covering nearly half an acre, British Land says. The group says the design has “efficient and adaptable” floor plates of various sizes, ranging from 21,000 sq ft at the base to 6,000 sq ft at the top of the tower, and claims that these “are already generating interest from a broad range of occupiers from across the insurance, financial, professional and corporate business sectors”.
Detailed planning consent for the Cheesegrater is in place and demolition and preliminary basement works have already been completed. The total development cost is expected to be around £340m, British Land says. On-site construction will start immediately following the construction tender process, which will start in January 2011. Practical completion to shell and core is expected in Q2 2014. The final agreement is subject to contract, which is expected to be signed by the end of the year.
The 50:50 joint venture between Oxford Properties and British Land follows last week’s confirmation that Land Securities and Canary Wharf Group were joining forces to get the Walkie-Talkie tower built at 20 Fenchurch Street in the City.
