Duo join forces with Galliard for 2.2m sq ft scheme
Ballymore and Oracle Group are planning a 43-storey Foster & Partners-designed residential tower in London’s Docklands as a part of a £1bn mixed-use scheme, flying in the face of the turmoil in the residential sector.
A joint venture between Irish developer Ballymore, David Burke’s Oracle, Galliard Homes and investor and developer City & Docklands will submit a planning application next week for a 2.2m sq ft development on Millharbour.
Darryl Flay, chief executive of Oracle, said the joint venture hopes to start phased development by the end of next year.
Flay said it would use debt finance and hoped a combination of preselling elements of the scheme and an improved financial environment next year would make this possible.
‘In this market, finding the funding for the whole scheme will be very difficult,’ he admitted.
‘We will start on the Great Eastern site in a phased manner. We will be looking for some significant presales on the residential units, we will probably look to have a hotel operator in, and we will get the affordable housing presold.’
Around 1m sq ft of the scheme will comprise private flats and a further 430,000 sq ft of affordable housing units would give a total of around 2,000 homes. There would be a large proportion of family homes in the affordable housing blocks, and luxury flats in the Foster-designed tower.
Most of the private flats will be built on the 3.5 acre former Great Eastern Trading Estate at Millharbour on the banks of the Thames. There will also be a 180,000 sq ft hotel.
The affordable housing, a small number of private units, 45,000 sq ft of shops and a 500,000 sq ft office development will be occupy the other site, the 3.3 acre Audi garage site at Marsh Wall.
The two sites, which straddle Ballymore’s 820-flat Pan Peninsula, were bought in 2006 for £122m.
Ballymore and Oracle have worked up the planning application, with Foster & Partners and US architect Skidmore Owings & Merrill.
Galliard will have a sales and marketing role in the joint venture, while City & Docklands was involved with the original negotiations for the Marsh Wall site.
Flay expected the entire scheme to take around seven years to complete.