The striking façade of a new Crown Estate development near Piccadilly Circus is marred by an ugly plastic protrusion. Fear not. The indented white box covers a 25-metre-long highly coloured cornice made up of 39 glazed terracotta pieces designed by Turner prize-winning artist Richard Deacon.
The world will see the full glory of Deacon’s work next month when the Crown Estate tears off the plastic on the front of Eagle Place in Piccadilly.
The working title of the Eric Parry-designed block containing 57,000 square feet of office space, 21,000 square feet of retail and five apartments is St James’s Gateway. That is partly because the block being developed for the Crown by Stanhope runs back to Jermyn Street, but mostly because it is the first completed block in an area where the Estate plans to spend £500 million over 10 years upgrading tired and dowdy St James’s.
The Crown owns about £1 billion of property in the area, bringing in rents of £49 million a year, said James Cooksey, head of the St James’s portfolio. Last week, it announced it was looking for a partner to co-invest in a £350 million scheme to redevelop two big blocks between Haymarket and Lower Regent Street.
Cooksey says they hope to sell the flats for around £2000 a square foot and office space for between £80 and £100 a square foot, double the present £40 to £50. He declined to give details of how investing £500 million over 10 years will be made to pay. But pushing up the rent roll to £80 million by charging more in the new developments would value the St James’s Estate at £1.6 billion. Shouldn’t be too difficult.
