Great Portland Estates today became the latest developer to place a bet on Crossrail, snapping up a property in the West End it believes will flourish once the project is completed in 2019.
The company has bought Oxford House, a freehold property at the junction of Oxford Street and Newman Street, which is close to Great Portland’s own 2.3-acre Rathbone Place redevelopment.
It has also entered into rights of light and rights of way agreements with Land Securities over its development at 73-89 Oxford Street and its rival’s 7 Soho Square property.
The deals cost the group a combined £91.5 million, and come after it emerged last month that British Land had agreed to spend £470 million on property in Paddington Central, where a Crossrail station will open in 2018.
Elsewhere in the property world, Land Securities said its Walkie-Talkie skyscraper in the City’s insurance district should be two-thirds full by the time it opens next year.
The company was upbeat about London’s property market, betting that a wave of companies will have to move in the next few years due to lease expires.
Land Securities said it had sold £152.6 million of property in the three months to the end of June and signed £5.5 million of development lettings.
