Tom Ryan, an Irish property investor, will build a 75-storey skyscraper on the site he acquired for £100m on Thursday in the business district to the east of the City of London. The tower will be 7 meters higher than Canary Wharf’s tallest office building. The acquisition is the first in what sources say will be a series of UK property investments by Mr Ryan. Market sources in Ireland were perplexed at the deal.
The 240-metre 'Hertsmere Tower' will cost more than £850m (€1bn) to build and will be completed by 2018
The scheme is one of a string of high-rise housing developments under construction across the capital, including the Heron in the City and One The Tower at St George’s Wharf in Vauxhall.
Savills, one of the UK’s leading estate agents, says that London is facing an affordable housing crisis and sky-high rents and, at the same time, an oversupply of high-value homes because waves of foreign investment are flowing into the capital’s housing market. Four-fifths of purchasers of London’s prime property are foreign and two-thirds of buyers are investors rather than owner-occupiers.
Mr Ryan, however, will have to overcome some hurdles before he can start building. Though the site has planning permission for a 242-metre mixed-use scheme containing offices, a hotel and shops, he will have to ask Tower Hamlets council to allow a housing development instead. Stuart Robinson, of property advisers CBRE, says it will be difficult for the council to turn down his request.
The Hertsmere Tower will be priced as prime real estate – upwards of £1,000 a square foot. There will be space for 714 apartments covering more than 500,000 sq ft, said Richard Berridge, chief operating officer of Ryan Corporation UK.
“Canary Wharf is one of the few places in the UK where you can build a tall building. It’s time for a very good residential building of a very high standard; that is something that has been lacking there until now” Mr Berridge said.
Hertsmere Tower will overtake Europe’s tallest residential building, the Sky Tower in Wroclaw, Poland, which is 212 metres tall. But it will not outstrip Europe’s overall tallest building, The Shard at London Bridge, which is 308 metres and is primarily office, restaurant and hotel space.
Hertsmere is the first British scheme for Mr Ryan, who has invested in several other countries, Mr Berridge said. Ryan Corporation would not provide details of Mr Ryan’s past developments.
edited from Financial Times and Daily Mail
