London's skyline is a growing mess (Commentary)

[johnnypd]

There is a lot of Canadian investment in London but it doesn't really stand out. The UK's been the most open major economy in the world for a while, in terms of investment, real estate, migration and so on. So it is normal to see Canadian pension funds backing schemes in London, but you also have a big Aussie presence through the westfield developments in Stratford and Shepherd's Bush, the Qataris pretty much everywhere, and increasingly the Chinese.

[isaidso]

Originally Posted by johnnypd

There is a lot of Canadian investment in London but it doesn't really stand out.

Some of it goes to great lengths to hide the fact that it's Canadian. It would probably shock most Brits if they found out Carling was a Canadian beer, for instance. It's wrapped itself in the British flag quite convincingly.

[picard]

There are lots of new clusters under construction in london, but there are some places where several clusters are merging together to create what will be proper skyscraper downtowns, instead of just clusters.
Ive posted about all the towers going up in canary wharf, but that whole area is becoming one big skyline. Right next to canary wharf there is the greenwich mega development (over 30 100m+ towers) that is rising quickly, and with the other towers going up on the isle of dogs/docklands/canary wharf, it will soon be one big ocean of towers.

In central london the city of london cluster is now surrounded by lots of other new clusters, as the COL cluster expands outwards to meet the surrounding clusters that are expanding inwards, it is becoming another skyscraper downtown for london. The number of towers under construction in this central london area is very high, similar to the canary wharf/greenwich super cluster.
This is some of the towers under construction just in the central city of london downtown.

22 bishopsgate 278m UC
The scalpel 192m UC
100 bishopsgate 172m UC
One blackfriars 163m UC
Principal place tower one 161m UC
250 city road tower one 155m UC
Southbank tower 155m UC
One angel court 101m UC
40 city road 139m UC
250 city road tower two 137m UC
Heron plaza 135m UC
Shell tower one 37fl UC
Shell tower two 32fl UC
Shell tower three 30fl UC
Shell tower four 21fl UC
Shell tower five 17fl UC
Shell tower six 15fl UC
One crowne place tower one 123m UC
One crowne place tower two 107m UC
The stage 120m UC
Canada water 150m UC
Blackfriars circus 27fl UC
128-150 blackfriars road 27fl UC
Highpoint 149m UC
One the elephant 133m UC
Two fifty one 134m UC
Imperial tower 105m UC
Lexicon 120m UC
Canaletto 95m UC
Eagle tower 28fl UC
Montcalm signature tower 24fl UC
Cannon rubber factory 22fl UC
Agar grove tower one 21fl UC
Agar grove tower two 19fl UC
Xy air 20fl UC
White collar factory 17fl UC
Archway tower 17fl UC
Aldgate place tower one 26fl UC
Aldgate place tower two 25fl UC
Aldgate place tower three 21fl UC
15-17 lehman road 24fl UC
Goodmans fields tower one 23fl UC
Goodmans fields tower two 23fl UC
Goodmans fields tower three 22fl UC
Goodmans fields tower four 22fl UC
Goodmans fields tower five 21fl UC
Goodmans fields tower six 21fl UC
Goodmans fields tower seven 15fl UC
One mitre square 80m UC
60 commercial road 19fl UC
Altitude tower 29fl T/O
One commercial street 84m T/O
Aldgate tower 29fl T/O
Elephant park tower one 30fl UC
Elephant park tower two 27fl UC
Elephant park tower three 23fl UC
Elephant park tower four 21fl UC
Elephant park tower five 19fl UC
Elephant park tower six 15fl UC
Elephant one tower one 21fl UC
Elephant one tower two 17fl UC
Elephant one tower three 15fl UC
Imperial college tower 19fl UC
Victorial square 17fl UC
Tate modern 76m UC
Wedge house 61m UC
240 blackfriars road 80m T/O
Principal place tower two 67m UC
Hoxton press tower one 21fl UC
Hoxton press tower two 17fl UC
51-57 kingsland high street 15fl UC
Avante garde 27fl T/O
Aylesbury several towers UC
Bermondsey works 25fl UC
Guys and st thomas 75m UC
Chambers wharf 16fl UC
One tower bridge 80m T/O
One creechurch place 80m UC
London wall 77m UC
One new street square 70m UC
10 fenchurch street 69m UC
Fleet building 66m UC
Goldmann sachs 60m UC
Blake tower 16fl UC
Bloomberg place 16fl T/O
5 broadgate 69m UC
12 new fetter lane 15fl prep
Fann street ymca 16fl prep
Can of ham 90m UC
Centre point 33fl UC
London dock tower one 93m UC
London dock tower two 71m UC
London dock tower three 70m UC
London dock tower four 64m UC
London dock tower five 57m UC
London dock tower six 54m UC
London dock tower seven 54 UC
London dock tower eight 54m UC
London dock tower nine 52m UC
Skyline 101m UC
City north finsbury park tower one 21fl UC
City north finsbury park tower two 21fl UC
199 westminster bridge 18fl T/O
57 east 15fl UC
20 eastbourne terrace 18fl UC
Pump tower 24fl UC

Plus about another hundred more towers in prep/demo/app, it will soon look very impressive

[Docere]

Originally Posted by isaidso

Some of it goes to great lengths to hide the fact that it's Canadian. It would probably shock most Brits if they found out Carling was a Canadian beer, for instance. It's wrapped itself in the British flag quite convincingly.

Hey, there was even a Canadian-born PM in the 1920s.

[isaidso]

Originally Posted by Docere

Hey, there was even a Canadian-born PM in the 1920s.

I did not know that. Which one?

[picard]

Saw the canadian tennis defector greg rusedski on tv today, been british for years but the accent still as canadian as ever, do canadians even remember who greg rusedski is?

[Jonesy55]

Originally Posted by isaidso

I did not know that. Which one?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonar_Law

He was only PM for about 7 months so he isn't one of the more well-known of them.

[nito]

Originally Posted by isaidso

Some of it goes to great lengths to hide the fact that it's Canadian. It would probably shock most Brits if they found out Carling was a Canadian beer, for instance. It's wrapped itself in the British flag quite convincingly.

I don’t think your analogy of brand localisation really applies to property investment. Brookfield as an example certainly hasn’t felt the need to shy away from its property developments in London, as demonstrated by its enthusiasm for 100 Bishopsgate which would be its first ever committed project without a pre-let.

A more simpler explanation is that London is a very attractive for developers from across the globe; yields are good and the vacancy rates are well below half that of other cities such as New York and Toronto.

I doubt anyone has heard of Lodha Group – India’s largest housing developer – yet it is looking to spend $5bn in London by 2018. Brookfield is simply one of many international property firms with a presence in London.

[mhays]

For a big property owner and/or developer, their portfolio is "proof" of how great they are. Street cred in other words. That's important because confidence is one of the top priorities in their world...from prospective tenants, contractors, local governments, and so on. Brookfield is an example of that. They're in many cities and they market that.

Sometimes it's politically important for a local firm to be the "face" of a development, and local firms will understand the local market, so often a big firm will parter with a local one. Or if the expertise is the key part, they'll hire a couple local people to help lead the process.

[picard]

Brookfield are very smart in their developments. Take the principal place scheme in london as example. It consists of a 161m residential tower and a 69m office midrise. Brookfield made enough money from the office midrise (which they have fully let to amazon), to cover the cost of building the tower aswell, so now the money from the tower is 100% profit, the profit they made just from the midrise was enough to cover the cost of building the whole development.

Another of their uc projects in london, a bulky office tower called london wall, is fully let before they have even finished building it.

Brookfields speculative uc office tower, 100 bishopsgate, began without a prelet but has now leased out a considerable amount of of office space with a lot of the floors fully let before its even reached halfway through its construction.
Brookfield have many other developments under construction in london (like the 278m 22 bishopsgate skyscraper) as their schemes are always successfull and they make big profits in the city, with both office and residential.

[chris08876]

High Rise in the capital – BBC London:

• Video Link

Published on Feb 1, 2017

400 new high rise buildings are in the pipeline for the capital – but many believe that councils only allow such developments because they bring them massive revenue for greenlighting the planning consent. Mark Jordan reports.

[StethJeff]

Whoa, blast from the past.

Just came back from London 3 months ago and was glad to see that my initial thoughts were absolutely correct: god that ferris wheel is ghastly. Such a hack gimmick for one of the most impressive urban riverfronts on Earth. Great for Vegas, ok for Singapore, idiotic for London. Someone should build a Zipper next to the Duomo in Florence.

[pico44]

The Ferris Wheel is so ridiculously terrible. I'm just in awe of the fact that it happened.

[10023]

Agreed. Does anyone know the particulars, like how long the operator's lease is? Hopefully they'll take the damn thing down eventually.

[montréaliste]

Originally Posted by 10023

Agreed. Does anyone know the particulars, like how long the operator's lease is? Hopefully they'll take the damn thing down eventually.

Or course a lot of folks felt the same about the Awful Tower in Paris when it was built later to be decommissioned. It never happened and became the Eyeful that it is. The Ferris wheel is more problematic, to say the least, em, or should I say the leased...

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by StethJeff

Great for Vegas, ok for Singapore, idiotic for London. Someone should build a Zipper next to the Duomo in Florence.

I don't think it's THAT bad. London isn't really a uniform historic city like Florence; it has tons of postwar brutalist and modern architecture. I think there's room for modern and/or tacky stuff.

Maybe the location is inappropriate, though.

[10023]

Originally Posted by montréaliste

Or course a lot of folks felt the same about the Awful Tower in Paris when it was built later to be decommissioned. It never happened and became the Eyeful that it is. The Ferris wheel is more problematic, to say the least, em, or should I say the leased...

It's silly to even compare the Eiffel Tower with the London Eye.

[emathias]

Originally Posted by montréaliste

Or course a lot of folks felt the same about the Awful Tower in Paris when it was built later to be decommissioned. It never happened and became the Eyeful that it is. The Ferris wheel is more problematic, to say the least, em, or should I say the leased...

Originally Posted by 10023

It's silly to even compare the Eiffel Tower with the London Eye.

Yes, it is. The Eiffel Tower was original, a demonstration of what steel could do. The only city where a Ferris wheel is appropriate, in my opinion, is the very first city to ever have one: Chicago.

[mhays]

I like the London Eye. It fits well with the city's "historic but current" concept, and much of the architecture on the Thames. I also like the little one on my own waterfront.

[JManc]

Originally Posted by 10023

It's silly to even compare the Eiffel Tower with the London Eye.

Today, yes. A century ago, no.