British Land confirms its entry into the luxury apartment property market
26-07-2012
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It has bought a site in the city’s exclusive Mayfair area with planning permission fro 63,000 square feet of flats for £130 million.
The site known as Clarges Estate also has planning consent for 91,000 square feet of offices and the developer said it could sacrifice some flats for offices if signs of a slowdown among wealthy home buyers increases.
‘We thought very carefully before going ahead and there is a lot of flexibility in the mix between offices and apartments,’ said Chris Grigg, chief executive of a company more used to developing office blocks and shopping malls.
‘In the Green Park area of London there is a shortage of new build apartments and offices,’ he explained, adding the view over Green Park would also be a selling point.
Apartments will sell for £3,000 per square foot and above in an overall scheme worth about £500 million when finished.
Prices for luxury London apartment have surged in recent years as economic turmoil in Europe and political uprisings across North Africa and the Middle East have driven investors to London in search of a safe haven for investments.
However, there are signs of a slowdown after the British government said in March it would clamp down on tax avoidance by overseas buyers of homes costing more than two million pounds.
Prices for the best homes rose by their slowest rate in nine months in May, though values have increased 48.4% over the past three years, according to property consultant Knight Frank.
Grigg also revealed that the company could have a future role in London's landmark Battersea Power Station despite the fact a Malaysian consortium has paid £400 million for the derelict riverside site.
He said that a British Land director recently visited Kuala Lumpur to hold talks with the Malaysians amid calls by property experts for British involvement to ensure the success of a lengthy and technically complicated development by providing expertise on the country's arcane planning system among other subjects.
