Eastern promise in the Albert Dock

 
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Press
5 October 2012

Will the Royal Docks become a new Chinatown? Not yet for a good while, but if Xu Weiping, boss of Chinese developer Advanced Business Parks, has his way, 35 acres of empty land north of London City Airport will become a Canary Wharf-sized home for hundreds of Chinese companies.

This week, the Greater London Authority and Newham council selected ABP and UK partner Stanhope as the almost-preferred developers of the public land at Royal Albert Dock.

Stanhope boss David Camp has been to China to see what ABP has built on a 160-acre site at Fengtai, about an hour from central Beijing.

“About 15 million square feet of space has been built and occupied over five years by hundreds of companies you have never heard of — companies that ABP think will want to establish European HQ’s in a similar sort of spot in London,” he says. It’s not hard to see why the GLA and Newham are keen to test further the realities of such an idea.

ABP and Stanhope will be awarded preferred developer status and given the go-ahead to work up plans if London Mayor Boris Johnson and Newham Mayor Sir Robin Wales can be convinced of Xu Weiping’s credentials.

“What the area needs is a critical mass of development”, says Camp. Richard Rogers planned the last critical mass development in 1986. “The most impressive shopping centre in Europe” was to stretch along the 2.5km length of the Royal Albert Dock. Will the Royal achieve critical mass by the time another 26 years have passed? It’s far too early to say, but some mass is building.

Take a ride over the Thames on the new Emirates cable car, and you come down near the new Siemens research centre designed by architects Wilkinson Eyre. This concept may just father imitators further east in Silvertown, an empty spot where lonely blocks of flats overlook the Thames Barrier.

Last Friday, Chelsfield submitted more detailed proposals to build up to 40 corporate “branded pavilions” on a 50-acre site. Berkeley proposed thousands of homes, but lost out in competition to what they regard as the slightly loopy idea proposed by Chelsfield boss, Sir Stuart Lipton. The latest news is that Chelsfield is pressing on.

“We have put in more detailed proposals and expect to hear in the next two to three weeks,” says the company’s Andrew Unterhalter.

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