In taking Irvine Sellar’s The Place at London Bridge, News Corp has lifted the market in Southbank to a new level, particularly as it is a pre let.
It highlights Colliers' Mark McAllister's view that the area is now emerging as a major media centre and certainly having the big publishing group there will act as a catalyst for other media groups. All credit to Sellar for jumping the hurdles of an economic downturn and going for designs by Renzo Piano, one of the world’s top architects.
It could be argued that too little appreciation is shown for the property industry and how it is transforming London and taking the financial risks that go with that. First, it was Land Securities in Southbank that led the way there, although Manhattan Loft did its bit some years ago.
Then there is the raft of developments on the City fringe which we feature in this issue in Shoreditch, Aldgate and Whitechapel as well as Clerkenwell. The process is, of course moving east and west all the time to Battersea and Greenwich. To the north, it is Kings Cross and the arrival of a massive Google presence.
It is hard to know where the process will stop as it spreads out from the centre but with the population expected to increase to 10 million the guess must be that there are a few years of substantial development to come.