Clapham, Chelsea, Kensington, Notting Hill and Wandsworth: these neighbourhoods are traditionally favoured by bankers. But suddenly something is changing. City workers are suddenly more willing to contemplate a home within walking distance of the office. They are also seeing benefits in a home that looks rather like the office: steel and glass, but very efficient. NEO Bankside, a development of 199 apartments in the Bankside area of the capital, just behind Tate Modern, is benefiting from this shift (see London Village, page 8). This area, a thin slice of land on the south bank of the Thames between Blackfriars and London bridges, is now considered prime Central London.
The façades of the four futuristic pavilions may look sober and corporate from pavement level. But timber screens and vermilion braces across the structure soften the exterior. Inside are high-tech, light-filled apartments with the comforts of a designer hotel; there is a concierge service, for example. Most of the north-facing flats look straight on to the Thames, the Millennium Bridge and St Paul’s Cathedral, just across the water.
The complex includes a spa, a gym and even a business centre. Ringed by landscaped public gardens, featuring beehives, an orchard and herb plot, it will be locked at night for security. Such features evidently appeal; 88 of the 120 apartments released for sale have been sold. About a third of the buyers are British, but there are 20 other nationalities, making the development as international as the typical City trading desk. Investors account for about 30 per cent of purchases, which means that two-bedroom apartments are likely to be let from about £1,000 a week. But the majority of buyers have bought to live there, either as their principal home or as a trendy crash pad when they visit London.
The architects to the development are Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners, the firm of Lord Rogers of Riverside. This team is also responsible for One Hyde Park, a glass and steel development in Knightsbridge that has also caught the imagination of those wanting hotel-type comfort, security and the glossy corporate look. There is, obviously, a difference in price: apartments at NEO Bankside, a joint venture between Grosvenor and Native Land, fetch about £1,200 per square foot, against £6,000 at One Hyde Park.
Last week, a one-bedroom duplex apartment at the Knightsbridge scheme went for £10 million; the most expensive penthouse sold for between £135 million and £140 million. A two-bedroom flat at NEO Bankside will set you back £1 million. Prices for the six penthouses have yet to be released. The typical price per square foot for the locality is £1,000, according to Mark O’Kane, the sales manager at Stirling Ackroyd’s Bankside office.
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The appeal of Bankside is partly down to the regeneration of the area, a process that began with Tate Modern in 2000.The extension to the museum is creating considerable excitement, as is the vertiginous Shard, which will be completed by next year and where a penthouse flat is expected to fetch £100 million.