POPULARITY RATING NEO SCHEME TRAILS


SCHEME


SOUTH BANK NEO Bankside


20 BLACKFRIARS ROAD DEVELOPER: CIRCLEPLANE PRIVATE UNITS: 167


One Tower Bridge


VNEB Stewarts Lodge Embassy Gardens Riverlight


SOUTH BANK TOWER DEVELOPER: CIT


PRIVATE UNITS: 117 LONDON AVERAGE Units Number of Units sold sold weeks to sell per week


150 182


12


342 376


149 58


5


41 21


76.7


1.01 3.14


2.40 8.34


17.90 0.7


Key


BAD


GOOD


buyers insist on being right on it, so riverside developments will have a larger target market that will pay a premium.” This is the theory behind CIT’s


purchase of the much unloved 1970s King’s Reach office block on Stamford Street in a joint venture with Jadwa Investment in 2010. With a new name (South Bank Tower) plus six extra storeys taking its height to 421 feet, a new facade and internal rejuvenation, it is in the process of becoming a mixed-use tower with 173 flats from floors 11 to 30 as well as lower-level retail and office space. “Our position on the bend in the river


means that a very high proportion of our residential units have river views,” says CIT managing director George Kyriacou. He is also installing one of London’s


largest roof gardens, a private gym and pool as well as new public realm – the sort of features associated with development in longer-established prime central London locations. However, while many front-line


Thames-side schemes, now and to come, may deserve “prime” designation, low- cost units exist just a few streets inland. “Southwark Bridge Road and Blackfriars


Road remain relatively undervalued for their location so close to the South Bank,” says BNP PRE’s Blake. “Even better value is found further south in Elephant & Castle. It’s here where high-value new-build apartments in towers with views such as One The Elephant and Strata can still be had for less than £700 per sq ft.” But Blake expects that once Elephant


& Castle’s regeneration is complete and nearby older office sites are readied for residential conversion over the next decade, “the South Bank effect will bleed south to this well-connected location”. Whether the feel-good factor can have


quite the effect it has in Waterloo, Vauxhall and Battersea remains to be seen. Today, most quality residential units in these areas fetch a maximum of £1,000 psf, according to LRR. But future high-spec developments


could easily stretch into the £2,000 to £4,000 figures seen in established PCL locations across the river, such as South Kensington and Belgravia. London Residential Research


calculates that this transformation could happen in the next two years as a result of the South Bank’s large pipeline. The prospect of a prime South Bank whets the appetite of many property insiders, but not all. A few argue that if high net-worth buyers move in, many others will be priced out. “The real benefit of apartments in


traditionally unprime areas of the South Bank is that they can tap into the ready pool of young professionals looking for cheaper developments in SE1,” says Dominic Griffiths, Bankside sales manager for agency Stirling Ackroyd. The same was said of Chelsea and


Kensington over a decade ago but did little to stop the expansion of the PCL juggernaut. Now it looks as if its next stop is the South Bank.


www.estatesgazette.com


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