Canary Wharf Group acquires full ownership of office-led scheme

£90m paid to British Waterways and Ballymore for ownership of Wood Wharf Partnership

Article posted: 23 Jan 2012

Canary Wharf Group has acquired ownership of the Wood Wharf Limited Partnership and associated companies and an overriding 250 year lease for the 16.8 acre Wood Wharf site immediately adjacent to the Canary Wharf business and shopping district. The transaction reflects Canary Wharf Group’s commitment to developing a more diverse portfolio, both in terms of its asset and tenant base, and its confidence about the future of London as a pre-eminent global centre.

Canary Wharf Group has acquired 100%of the Wood Wharf Limited Partnership by combining its own 25% interest with the 75% interests acquired from its original joint venture partners British Waterways to whom it has paid £52.4m and Ballymore Properties which will receive £38m for its share. It also agreed the restructuring of British Waterway’s on-going participation as freeholder of the Wood Wharf site.  As a result, Canary Wharf Group has control over the timing and design of the scheme.

Wood Wharf will be a new mixed use development scheme comprising residential, retail, leisure and office space in Canary Wharf. In May 2009 the current master plan, designed by Rogers, Stirk, Harbour and Partners with Landscape architects Martha Schwartz and Partners, received one of London’s largest ever single outline planning consent for 4.8m sq ft net.  This represents an area almost one third of the size of the Canary Wharf Estate and will comprise approximately 1.25m sq ft of residential development, 0.2m sq ft of retail, a 0.2m sq ft hotel and 3.1m sq ft of office space in the Docklands. Detailed consent was granted on the three office buildings closest to the Canary Wharf estate totalling 1.5m sq ft net in July 2009.  

Sir George Iacobescu, Chairman and Chief Executive of Canary Wharf Group, said: “Wood Wharf’s development will mark an important evolution in the development of the Canary Wharf business, retail and residential district. This mixed use development will set new, world-class standards for design, sustainability and community integration.”

To date, Canary Wharf Group has designed and constructed over 15 m sq ft of office space at Canary Wharf. Following these transactions, in addition to the Wood Wharf site, Canary Wharf Group has a development pipeline at Canary Wharf with planning permission for 5.29m sq ft (excluding the Riverside South project owned by J.P. Morgan for which Canary Wharf Group is Development and Construction Manager).

For breaking news relating to office space in East London follow us on http://twitter.com/officespacenews

Posted by Jo