CONSTRUCTION BOOM GOOD FOR THE ZLOTY
My friend Red Ken, the Mayor of London, is so pleased that CrossRail has gone through, and even more pleased that behind-the-scenes pressure from ministers has squeezed £300m of funding out of the City Corporation. That’s £200m from Guildhall’s vaults, and another £100m to be squeezed from City occupiers in some sort of ‘voluntary donation’ by those companies which think they are beneficiaries – presumably big US banks. Err – is this the best time to tap them, or maybe it is deferred payment. Pay-up when you are able?
Quite why the City Corporation – ie the ratepayers in the City of London - has to pay part of the £16billion is beyond me. I am old enough to remember when the government and the transport undertaking used to pay for this, rather than pick on the ratepayers to join in.
All of London’s ratepayers are also going to pay, through a massive slug of cash from Transport for London – ie London Transport, as was - which is one of Red’s quangos. Maybe there will be special carriages for London ratepayers? And even-more-special for City ratepayers? City and London-wide payers, who will be paying twice, ought to get something special. People using CrossRail who live beyond the M25 will have to stand, in carriages only cleaned once a month, with a power hose.
One of the many impacts of CrossRail will be that construction costs in the UK are continuing to go through the roof – Olympics and CrossRail being developed at the same time, fighting for the same workers and building materials (if the Chinese have any spare capacity that can be released for the UK). Property developers with their footling office blocks are all part of the mix, but will obviously be in the queue for workers and materials.
I cannot see how even importing the entire population of Poland can possibly avoid the skills shortage.
I have never been convinced by the arguments for CrossRail, and also dread the mayhem during construction, especially the spoil tips, work sites and dumper lorries. I hate the thought of the Olympics too, and chuckle at thoughts of how the budget will bust.
THE PROPERTY CAN BE FUN SHOW
I see that my favourite targets, the architects, are planning a month-long London Festival of Architecture for next June-July. One of the ‘Starchitects’, a Mr Rafael Vinoly, is allegedly a concert-standard pianist (or a word like that?) and will perform on the keyboard as part of all this whooping-up.
So far those dullards at the RICS and British Property Federation have not risen to the challenge, so I am putting together a working party (favourite device of the RICS) so that property developers get their own show, at exactly the same time – what we call a “spoiler”.
Obviously Red Ken is keen to join, having so many contacts in the sector, and Sir Stuart Lipton, Lord Elliot Bernerd (assisted by his lovely daughter, Tara, she of the pink Smythson diary ) and John Ritblat have signalled their support. The Property Three are united by stupendous wealth, a life-long dedication to serving the community and a healthy taste for the arts. Funding should not, therefore, be an issue. Godfrey Bradman tells me he will think about it and get back.
The Bernerd lass will of course be looking after the decor, and Sir Stuart will be overall Taste Supremo, and wear a gold chain of office.
Obviously there will be events involving architects – chaining them to buildings, ducking them, and seeing if they are fireproof, are already being considered. I am hoping Lords Rogers and Foster will join in, although neither can be everywhere at once, and both are getting on a bit.
We are not inclined to feature Climate Change on our Festival agenda, as all the property industry people we know are either bored with it already (27%), don’t know what we are talking about (48%), too busy tearing about in their gas guzzlers (86%), or don’t think it is anything to do with them (106%).
While I mention Tara Bernerd, I am struggling to find a role for her charming husband, the Hon James Archer, son of the distinguished peer and literary giant. Given the Hon James’ history with “Flaming Ferraris”, there may be a Climate Issue, and I want no sneering journos.
Ereira Mendoza insist however, just to show off their own green credentials, that their company electric car feature somehow and that there also be a fashion show of colourful knitwear (produced in the UK and with zero carbon footprint, except for the early stage of production - sheep farting).
Look out for regular updates here. Any of you, dear readers, can nominate further members of the working party (with assigned roles if you wish).
WATCH FOR THE SIGNS AS THE NEIGHBOURHOOD GOES UP
The Times produced a useful guide on how to spot if your neighbourhood is up and coming. First the greasy takeaway becomes an edgy, post-modern brasserie; then there is the opening of bijoux boutiques selling nonsense household decor. Then the butcher and grocer, closed recently thanks to the aggressive supermarkets in the neighbourhood, re-open as more upmarket versions. Next sign is excessive quantities of twins to be seen – presaging the arrival of richer, older IVF-using mummies, taking the place of young couples with first babies, teachers, junior doctors, etc.
Then a Caffe Nero opens amongst the gastropubs, specialist cheese shops, Saturday foodie street market and “villagey” feel you’ve spotted. Lastly, behind hoardings, a new retail frontage is being put together. Is it a swanky bar, or an M&S food hall? No, the last sign is Foxtons estate agents, the people who eat what they kill among traditional estate agents.
The answer, apparently, the way to close them down, is to go in time wasting, collecting particulars, drinking their bottled water and coffee, and gossiping with their hard-pressed negotiators.
CHIPPY ARCHITECT LAUDED BY, ERR, MORE OF THE SAME
The architectural profession – the only comedy profession still open to people who can draw nicely (artists are not required to have this skill any longer) – has heaped praise on one of its own again. Or awarded the Stirling Prize, for short.
So hard up are the architects, looking for a person and a building to get the gong, that a library in southern Germany is the winner, and the designer is David Chipperfield, known as Chip on the Shoulder, because of his moans about lack of recognition in his native land. The library “only” cost Euros12 million. A snip.
The judges, who also had another Chipperfield opus on their shortlist, a grandstand to watch the Americas Cup, in Valencia, and who add a £20,000 cheque to the citation, are the president of the RIBA, the editor of Architects’ Journal (who co-sponsor the prize, now in its 12th year, with the RIBA), Louisa Hutton, who is an architect, Alain de Botton, the philosopher (I’m not making this up) and Ted Bloxham MBE, of edgy housebuilders Urban Splash.
Mr C has designed some stunners – my favourite is the Rowing Museum at Henley, but then, that’s my sport. Most of the firm’s work, though, is abroad, especially Germany, where he has an office. He has not gone entirely unrecognised in the UK, though – his 2004 CBE for services to architecture is one of the few awards not given by the masonry of brother and sister architects, and is not to be sneered at. It’s also loftier than Ted’s MBE
Dave’s firm, established in 1984, is trying to get in on the UK commercial sector too, with the design for Seal House in Swan Lane, EC4 – 13,000 sq metres of offices on 10 floors for that distinguished patron of architecture Irvine Sellar (think Shard, and Mr Renzo Piano). They are also designers for a residential development to replace two Thistle Hotels in Kensington But his and his firm’s main oeuvre, as we say, is galleries and museums and the like.
A Mr Steve Rose on The Guardian (there are lots Steves on the Guardian) claims, with no evidence adduced, milord, that Mr C “has been trumpeted as one of the finest architects in the country for much of the past decade”. The trumpeting has no doubt been done by architects and architectural critics. Mr Rose says Mr C has “almost” given up moaning that he’s better loved abroad. Thank God Steve didn’t quote much of the pretentious tosh that was the award citation; I have been looking for a pointy knife to stab my hand instead of type it all out for you. No reference, of course, to client satisfaction, let alone the users’ or indeed how much fun it was for the other professionals on the construction team.
Mr Rose notes that one of Mr C’s few UK projects is the Glasgow HQ of the BBC (in Govan Docks, lyrically refashioned as Pacific Quay), but Mr C’s firm was taken off the job half way through, the BBC appointing a local firm to deliver the £188m building “on time and on budget”. Mr Rose’s tone suggests he thinks that is somehow mean-spirited by the BBC.
Might it not, instead, be the fear that haunts all UK clients, hence the narrow range of architects they look to for design services?
GROS VENEUR FLEECES FLEAS
Les Puces, no longer quite the threat they once were to the visitor in France (the locals are in any case not bothered about fleas), is haunting one of this country’s aristocrats. Gerald, as I have always known the Duke of Westminster, Earl Grosvenor, is being stung by ungrateful traders in a Paris fleamarket in which he invested nearly £35m in 2005.
Fleamarkets are some sort of French tradition, not pursued in anything quite the same way here, probably because of our obsessive tidiness and regulations. Some of the traders at Les Puces in Saint-Ouen, on the north of Paris, are behind with rent, or not following the terms of their leases, so the Grosvenor Estate has set the lawyers on them. Quite right too. The traders complain that His Grace is bringing a hard-nosed Anglo-Saxon approach to estate management.
Please do your research, messieurs; the Duke’s family came over here with your Roi, William the Conqueror, Norman if not fully French. His Grosvenor title (only one of many) comes by anglicising the family role of being big hunters – deer then, dear real estate today. There are Grosvenor Hotels all over France, and Gerald’s antecedents especially favoured the Cote d’Azur, for sunshine and yachting. He is no enemy of la vie Francaise
A much better question for the traders would have been to ask in 2005 what on earth the Duke was doing spending petty cash, for him, on such appallingly multilet investments. Think about the management! Was the grand plan, or projet, to get them all out; run it more like a shopping centre, like the twee Lanes in Brighton? Getting a slice of a total seven hectares (the Duke only owns two sections, with about 420 traders; the market overall houses 2,500 traders) would certainly be helpful, and the Estate is quoted as saying it believed the whole market could be “strongly dynamised”.
Quite what that means, within the terms of the French version of the Landlord & Tenants Act, is beyond me. But the Duke should be careful, his legendary Mayfair and Belgravia holdings house many traders not unlike the French traders. His freeholds are also home to many well-connected French businesses and people.
I would hate the pleasing stucco terraces to be smeared by the farming by-products the French often employ when they think they are being bullied. There must be chances the French and English puceurs could link up, for joint direct action. I have the Duke’s private address available to the highest bidder.
PARIS COMES TO LONDON
Paris Hilton is no longer spear-heading the humanitarian rescue of Rwanda and its hard-pressed people, instead the global superstar is clearing personal space to work on her campaign to be elected patron of the London Office Agents Society. She will still be sipping Moscow Mules in the playful but moderate way she does, but my spy in the club scene says she thinks a role in the hard-pressed capital's office market is a great use for her talents.
SON LIKE FATHER SHOCK
Sir Stuart Lipton set himself apart from the rest of developers in the 80s and 90s with his grasp of the development "big picture" – the contractors’ and the architects’ work, for instance, when most developers had a more narrow focus.
He was rightly knighted, because of the contribution he has made over so many years to lifting the quality of design, not just as a developer, but through the many other organisations in which he played a part, notably as the first chairman of CABE.
Sir Stuart even went to commune with the quarrymen in Italy where Michaelangelo had sourced Carrara marble, no doubt arguing that if it was good enough for the artist, it was good enough to be trodden on by secretaries in City office building atrias.
But now I discover the Modern Medici has a lad in the property business, Elliot, the lad’s company being First Base. Unlike dad’s interests, First Base concentrates on affordable social housing. Just like dad, though, he hires Lord Rogers from time to time, currently for a project at Elephant & Castle.
The lad has been tipped by the London Evening Standard as one of the capital's 1,000 movers and shakers. I do hope that is not the kiss of death.
BEATING ABOUT?
To prove thatthis is no cheap, let alone insularweb-blog squat, I bring you news lifted directly from the US press, and admit here it has little to do with real estate as we know it.
For a long time, it seemed as if US President's daughter Jenna Bush's public image was pretty much summed up by her work on the club circuit. Back in 2005, the New York Post made mention of a party that included "Jenna on all fours doing 'the butt dance' ... as guys were ogling her thong."
If the First Twin's choice of recreational activities wasn't entirely bad--for instance, the Post's source gave Jenna credit for "doing [the butt dance] very well"--then neither was it entirely good.
By contrast, Chelsea Clinton learned the hard way about what can come of impromptu displays of thong and, so far, has covered her rear. It's no surprise that her Poise Count--the number of LexisNexis articles resulting from the word "poise" paired with her name--clocks in at 770, while Jenna trails at 144.
Chelsea was the accomplished Stanford graduate living a quiet life in New York, while Jenna was the not-so-accomplished University of Texas graduate living a loud life in--well, wherever she happened to go drinking.
I leave you with the thought that, after this research, Jenna might run against Paris Hilton for the presidency of the London Office Agents Society. Who wants to be her campaign manager?
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