“Obviously things have are moving at pace but I think the key mantra for any and every office development is to make sure the space you’re creating is flexible so that it can adapt to different occupier requirements. Clearly again, sort of partly driven by Covid but it was starting beforehand the amount of amenity that occupiers expect now in the buildings to encourage their employees to be in work and make employees have a great experience has gone up dramatically.”
Susan Freeman
Hi, I’m Susan Freeman. Welcome back to our PropertyShe podcast series brought to you by Mishcon de Reya in association with the London Real Estate Forum, where I get to interview some of the key influencers in the world of real estate and the built environment. Today, I am delighted to welcome David Camp, chief executive of leading London developer, Stanhope. David joined Stanhope in 1987, became a director in 1990, managing director in 1995 and chief executive in 2002. He spent his entire career in the property development and investment industry, either acting on behalf of clients or as a principle in relation to commercial and mixed use assets throughout the South East of England. David spent 9 years at Donaldson’s, now part of Cushman and Wakefield, 5 years as a partner. David’s activities at Stanhope have primarily been in relation to the identification, acquisition and funding of new projects and assets and in leading the strategy of the company. Under David’s leadership, Stanhope has delivered some of London’s most iconic developments. They include Paternoster Square, The Royal Opera House, Chiswick Park, The Bloomberg HQ, Central St Giles and White City Place. David is also a governor of the Museum of London, chairing their new museum board. So now I’m looking forward to hearing from David Camp about his 30 year track record of creating some of our most successful London buildings and neighbourhoods and the move into innovation districts.
David, good morning, it’s really good timing as, I know you have just celebrated your 30 year anniversary.
David Camp
That’s right yeah.
Susan Freeman
Amazing. So I think let’s start with, you know, when you joined Stanhope and, you know, when you set up the company and, and what the vision was at that time?
David Camp
Yeah sure. Stanhope’s certainly had two lives. It was set up by Stuart Lipton in 1983 and immediately got into a deal on Broadgate with Rosehaugh. So that was the big project that Stanhope had. It then moved on to some other big projects like Ludgate. I joined in 1987 and at the end of 1987 Stanhope floated. I think it was the Friday before Black Monday so it was an auspicious time. And then needless to say, as all the sort of merchant developers were at that stage, they were very geared to a ridiculous level because particularly Japanese Banks were sort of throwing money at them. So when the music stopped in about 1990 when the market crashed, we then entered into a whole 3, 4 years discussions with our banks to work out how we came out of that position solvently. And then effectively at the end of ’94 we agreed a deal with British Land for them to buy Stanhope Mark 1 and as part of that deal, Stuart and I bought back the Stanhope name plus a few management contracts so that was the start of Stanhope Mark II in 1995.
Susan Freeman
Quite a dramatic start and it shows my age but as a trainee lawyer, we were acting on the Rosehaugh side of the…
David Camp
Oh right okay. I don’t meet many people these days who know what I’m talking about, especially a lot of my colleagues who weren’t even born before then.
Susan Freeman
Exactly, so I was a very young trainee but got to see that scheme in action and obviously then the crash that followed. So that’s where Stanhope started. Now you have an incredible track record, um, is it 89 projects that Stanhope has been, it’s probably more actually?
David Camp
Yeah, no I think I always say 100 but that’s probably a slight exaggeration but it’s in that sort of order, yeah.
Susan Freeman
Well it is quite, I mean, incredible and, you know, obviously some really iconic developments. How did you plan to do things differently as a developer at that time?
David Camp
The main thing I was determined to do was not to take up a lot of debt. Having learnt the lesson from Stanhope I, and stay private basically. So a lot of our business was fee earning business to start with to build up the business because obviously cash is king and to make sure all the way through we were in a positive cash position. So no debt and positive cash were the two things I had learnt. But then in terms of the projects we did, they were very much, you know, old Stanhope projects in terms of I think 50 of our 100 projects, which obviously dates back to Stanhope 1, had been in the City so, you know, a big chunk of our business has always been in the City.
Susan Freeman
Yes and we’ll, we’ll talk a little bit about that. Would you say that there is a Stanhope model because you are often described as a development manager rather than a balance sheet developer?
David Camp
Well we’re two things in that regard. We do a lot of development management work for fees and promotes profit shares but since we bought in external investors, starting in 2006, we’ve had access to capital so increasingly we’ve been doing transactional deals where Stanhope has been putting alignment capital in with our institutional partners so now we’ve got a bit of a balance between pure fee income and deals where we’ve got some equity in them. So I think, you know, the big change really was once we came into 1995 and beyond was when we started bringing in some institutional investors.
Susan Freeman
And who are your main institutional investors?
David Camp
So back in 2006 Mitsui Fudosan who are MEC and Mitsui Fudosan both claim to be the largest property developer in Japan which I think is just their share prices move around but obviously a very substantial property company in their own right. And then in 2012 we bought in AIMCo, the Alberta state fund and then in 2022, we bought in Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan. So we’ve now got three sort of strong institutional investors which obviously gives us a, a solid base but also access to capital.
Susan Freeman
And in your 30 years you’ve delivered developments through a range of economic cycles. I mean, how would you characterise the London development landscape at the moment and is it different from previous cycles that you’ve, you’ve developed through?
David Camp
Yeah I think the big difference this cycle compared with previous cycles was the vacancy rate. So if you go all the way back to 1990, of course Canary Wharf and the City vacancy was pushing 20% and it was all grade A space so needless to say when things went pear shaped, rents fell through the floor from £70 to £35 simplistically and previous cycles have similarly however not that extreme vacancy but significant vacancy so the big, big difference this time round is vacancy of prime grade A product is right down at about 1% so there is vacancies about 10% but 9% of that is space which really no institutional occupier would want to, to occupy. So obviously the driver on mental growth this time round is completely different to rents falling in other cycles. So yields obviously have moved out in all of those cycles but yeah, it’s the rents which has sort of been a bit of the saviour in this cycle.
Susan Freeman
And there seems to be a sort of a bit of a debate at the moment about whether we’ve got a shortage of that grade A office space in, you know, in the City or whether with AI the workforce is going to be slashed and therefore we won’t need as much. I mean, how do you navigate those sorts of issues?
David Camp
Well I think, I mean I’m not the expert on AI but I think obviously it’s going to change how businesses operate and I’m sure you’re looking at it but I mean particularly lawyers, and I’ve been trying to get my head around how junior lawyers coming into law firms actually have that first step on the ladder because that’s the end of it which probably I am assuming AI can do a lot of for you. But I mean recently I don’t know whether you followed the comp traders who are obviously sort of AI tech base but it shows my ignorance, I don’t understand why but they’ve been over a 5 year period probably trebling in size so their space requirement sort of almost as they’ve settled down they will almost immediately need more space so people like Squarepoint, James Street, State Street their requirements have just gone through the roof over the last 5 years. So obviously there are, you know, winners and losers I think but I’m certainly not concerned that there’s going to be a general fall in demand and I think the whole, you know, working from home, well, you know, when you walk around the City now it’s about as buzzy as it’s ever been. So I think most people, certainly back to work 4 days a week and obviously even if they’re not there 1 day a week, you still need the same amount of space for the days where everyone is in so the other thing, I mean factually behind that since Covid, I can correct myself but something like a third of lettings have been lettings to occupiers who have taken more space than they had in their previous buildings.
Susan Freeman
And I think people want different space don’t they? I mean it may be a good point to talk about Bishopsgate, one of your outstanding City office towers.
David Camp
That’s where I’m sat at the moment on the 33rd floor, yeah.
Susan Freeman
That is a great endorsement.
David Camp
A great endorsement for the product year.
Susan Freeman
I mean when you designed that it probably was quite different from office towers that had gone before?
David Camp
Yeah I, obviously things are moving at pace but I think the key mantra for any and every office development is to make sure the space you’re creating is, is flexible so that it can adapt to different occupier requirements. Clearly again sort of partly driven by Covid but it was starting beforehand. The amount of amenity that occupiers expect now in their buildings to encourage the employees to be in work and make employees have a great experience has, has gone up dramatically. In Bishopsgate I think around 12% of the space is amenity space rather than office space so as you say, that’s sort of a driver of a requirement even if the actual desk space has gone down a bit, there is the driver of more amenity pushing it the other way.
Susan Freeman
And obviously what tenants want or what they think they want changes, you know, quite quickly. The development process is long, you know, when you, you go through planning and by the time you get the building up presumably it’s, it’s years by which time what tenants want may have changed. I mean, how do you retain flexibility?
David Camp
Well I think it’s all the basic things like floor to ceiling heights, dimensions, you know quarter to window, the amenity power loads etcetera, etcetera. So you’ve got all of the basic building requirements within your building and then clearly if you don’t fit out an area as a café or as an office, you know, providing you’ve got that flexibility it’s, it’s easily done.
Susan Freeman
So you can adapt as you, as you go along?
David Camp
Yeah I mean on Bishopsgate I dread to think how long, it was probably 10 years since MEC bought us in to get the planning consents so as you say, that’s a long period between conception and delivery. But obviously the design evolves as you get towards the construction and as I say, I think if you look at this building, it’s definitely super prime. I think everyone we’ve seen who’s come into the building agrees it’s a fantastic building in the sense of the entrance space, the lobby’s, the floors themselves. We’ve got a good range of floor sizes which is always good rather than having a sort of straight up and down tower where you’ve got to let 50 floors which are all exactly the same which is obviously a problem going back to Heron the Tower, that was one of their, that slowed down their lease up didn’t it but, um, at least our 14.14 has been pretty fast and the flexibility in terms of floor sizes has definitely helped.
Susan Freeman
And I think you’re working on some new potentially landmark City towers, 1 Undershaft, 55 Bishopsgate, 70 Gracechurch. Are you in planning on those and how will they differ from, you know, the way you designed 8 Bishopsgate?
David Camp
So 1 Undershaft which will be the pinnacle of the cluster, 70 odd floors, 1.2 million square feet will be the iconic building in the cluster. In terms of the product we’re providing there, again the amenity is evolving but we’re producing flexible space so I think the amenity total there is pushing on 15%. I think obviously as towers, buildings generally have been moving forward, sustainability has become much more of a on the top of the pile as far as occupiers are concerned so obviously that’s something that evolves over time although I think now there’s, well you’ll probably know better than me but in major corporates there does seem to be a bit of back tracking as they realise what it, the impact it has on the their bottom line. But then obviously the other thing is how policy changes as well. I am sure you will have heard many a developer complaining about how many bike spaces we have to provide which if you’re lucky, 25% of them get used but it’s seriously expensive because you have to do pretty well a whole basement and it’s space that could be used for something else. So I think the City are gradually getting on top of that in terms of reducing the requirement and the GLA as well.
Susan Freeman
Yes it’s, it’s difficult to get it right isn’t it? And you mentioned obviously, you know, over the 30 years a lot of your projects have been in the City so that relationship must be quite important with the City Corporation?
David Camp
Yeah absolutely. It’s absolutely critical and ever since, you know, Broadgate we’ve always had a very strong relationship with the City. I think the City definitely trusts us to deliver the right product so that’s always a good starting position and they know us well enough that it’s easy for us to go and have a meeting with, you know, senior personnel; whether it’s Tom Sleigh or Christopher Haywood or whatever who obviously are being very proactive in trying to get these projects off the ground. So yeah, I think I would say because we have a good track record, you know, we do what we say we’re going to do, they trust us and, you know, it’s that they can bend the rules but they can be as helpful as they can and so you mentioned planning consent, so 1 Undershaft we got planning consent just before our resolution to grant just before Christmas. We’ve now got a consent. Gracechurch we got a planning consent in a similar timescale and then 55 we got about a year before. So there’s three towers that we work closely with the City to get consents for buildings that fit what they want because obviously viewing galleries is one of those issues around which they are really strong on but again I think that’s one area where the City Corporation are now thinking, well we’ve got enough viewing galleries so that may be changing. The cost of viewing galleries is extraordinary because obviously you have to have a whole new core going through every single floor where you lose space and then building the facility itself at the top where you could otherwise have commercial space. So if you actually look at the whole cost of the viewing gallery, it’s very, very significant. So that is something I think that the City are reconsidering.
Susan Freeman
That’s interesting and do these viewing galleries actually get used by the public. Because you say there are quite a few of them now so?
David Camp
Well I think, I mean how many do you need really? I think they all get… we’ve got one here well it does get used but, you know, the door next door to ours is the viewing gallery at 22 Bishopsgate so it’s sort of like, how many different views do you want of the City. So yeah, I mean I think it depends, you know, in The Shard because there’s lots going on in The Shard, um, restaurants and stuff at the top. I think that gets very well used. Fenchurch Street, uh, the Walkie Talkie gets pretty well used but I think, you know, here it is used reasonably, a reasonable amount. There’s a booking system but, you know, if you can combine 22 with us as it were, as one viewing gallery, that would be plenty I would say in this location.
Susan Freeman
And do your, do your occupiers want outside space? Is that something which is important to them?
David Camp
Yeah absolutely. So that’s what, you know, as well as amenity it’s sort of includes outdoor space so again, here on level 26, we’ve got a very substantial terrace, probably 10,000 square feet so floor 26 is our restaurant amenity floor and so we’ve got that large terrace with it which is, you know, something that’s, uh, that’s pretty key to the design and what occupiers want. Again I think there’s a question as to whether terraces and outdoors pace have got a bit overdone because if you get up to the 50th floor in the building, environmentally it’s not necessary something you’re going to want to use day in, day out because of obviously the wind etcetera, so I think there needs to be a bit of a sanity check as to how much outdoor space. But yeah, absolutely you definitely need it. Tenants, it’s one of the big, the big amenity points that occupiers want.
Susan Freeman
So I think you’ve got in the pipeline and under construction at the moment about 11.5 million square foot of development and there is so much that, um, obviously we can’t talk about everything but I just, I wondered if there were any sort of particular schemes that, you know, you’re particularly excited about?
David Camp
Yeah, well I keep coming back to 1 Undershaft to a certain extent but I mean obviously as the pinnacle of the cluster, the scale of the building being so iconic, that is absolutely one of the, you know, premier projects we’ve got on our books which is seriously exciting. Other projects, well Oxford is one you know well because your firm have just taken some space there.
Susan Freeman
I know, we will, we will, we be progressing on to Oxford North.
David Camp
So the other absolutely premier project we’ve got on our books is the British Library at King’s Cross next to the Crick which we’re undertaking with Mitsui Fudosan which, uh, again back to timescales we were originally selected on the project in 2016 and it’s only now that we’re starting to do additional works on site, enabling works on site so again, it just shows you how long these projects take and over that time design has definitely evolved because we’ve had the whole 10 years ago life science labs etcetera, etcetera, really wasn’t on anyone’s agenda. So in terms of the product there, particularly obviously it’s effectively part of King’s Cross but also it’s adjacent to the Crick. It’s absolutely we need to make sure the space could work for pure office occupiers but science and tech, life science as well. So that has been a sort of evolution over time up until now and indeed we are fine tuning the design now so the product won’t actually be finished until 2031. The timescale for the project was seriously extended because very soon after we got selected, Crossrail 2 came on to the agenda and our site was a site which had to be safeguarded for, for Crossrail 2 – whether or not it happens goodness knows. So to enable us to get on with the project we’ve had to include in the, in the design a massive ventilation box which is costing a lot of money and designing it, redesigning the scheme to enable that to be included sort of slowed us down at the front end by probably at least 2 years I would say.
Susan Freeman
Well I was wondering why, you know, it had taken this time. I’m beginning to understand now from what you are saying, actually it could be a good thing because as you say, the area, you know, has, has evolved, you’ve now got the Crick next door and, you know, it could be a good thing?
David Camp
Well I know, I mean you are quite right since the project when we started was, you know, it was a great office project right on King’s Cross St Pancreas which was fantastic but rents at that time I’m guessing a bit here but were probably £70 a foot maybe and they’re now up to well over £100 a foot so as you say, not only has the product changed but also rental value growth has been very strong so it’s not all downside having a long programme.
Susan Freeman
And just going back to 1 Undershaft, what’s the timing on that? When would you expect to complete that?
David Camp
Yeah well we’re onsite at the moment demolishing the existing Aviva Tower and that’s quite a complex demolition so we don’t actually get a cleared site until into Q2 next year, 2027. So over that time investor partners are obviously looking at how they’re going to fund the delivery of the project. They’ve got significant finance in place with their relationship banks etcetera from Singapore and the Far East but between now and March 2027 obviously given it’s such a major commitment, we’re looking at how we can de-risk the scheme for them and as with all towers, the best way to de-risk is to try and get a pre-let tenant. So that’s definitely on the agenda for the next 12 months.
Susan Freeman
It sounds very exciting, I will watch that one going up. One of the things I was, I was wondering about, your forte is identifying and acquiring new projects and I just wondered how your strategy, you know, whether it’s changed over the 30 years you’ve been running Stanhope and, you know, whether you are looking for something very different now than you would have, you know, been looking for earlier on in the, um, trajectory?
David Camp
Well I think, uh, the key point is obviously what occupiers want in terms of location has changed a fair bit over that time so back 30 years ago the British Library project wouldn’t have been considered to be a prime project. We’ve just acquired with Cheyne Capital a site on the south bank, Red Lion Court which we’re rebranding at the moment but so that’s the location which would have been an okay location but that now is prime, prime. People obviously love to be on the river, again we’ve got great amenity, great terraces so yeah, I’m very excited about that. We’ve recently done 76 Southbank further towards Waterloo which has let very well. It’s the old IBM building, you’ll no doubt know it, but it’s a very bespoke building, um, with amazingly large floors but it’s let very well which I think is part of the whole Southbank story. So yeah, I think that’s a sort of location we probably wouldn’t have looked at 30 years ago.
Susan Freeman
And with Red Lion Court are you taking over a development that’s started because I think Landsec had…?
David Camp
Yeah absolutely. As you’ll know, whatever it was, 12 months ago now I should think, Landsec had a change of strategy to move much more into residential and retail and therefore have been looking at realising capital from selling their office portfolio so that was one of the sites that was on the list for a sale but as you say, it was well down the line when we acquired it. Um, they’d already demolished the building, they were pretty close to entering into a construction contract and as always with Landsec, you know, they’d done a great job in terms of the product so we pushed the button, you know, without making any significant changes to the scheme, um. which is great because given it’s a cleared site ready to go, in terms of bringing product back into the market when supply is seriously low, it means that we can hopefully, it finishes in 2028 where if you believe all the stats, supply is going to be seriously tight because obviously if projects haven’t started by now given the timetable that we’ve talked about, they’re not going to come to the market until 2030 on. So you can track supply quite well and we will definitely be delivering in a good window I think.
Susan Freeman
And, I mean we talked at the beginning about the sort of non grey day offices. I mean, do many of your projects involve retrofitting older offices and sort of bringing them back into use?
David Camp
Yeah absolutely I think obviously retrofit is from a carbon point of view positive and all Local Authorities now want you to do a thorough analysis as to whether you can retain buildings before they agree you can demolish them so over the time we’ve done a lot of retrofits. Recently we completed Woolgate next to the Guildhall which we pre-let to Legal & General. I mentioned the Southbank which was another retro. Somewhat depressingly we’ve recently repositioned Warwick Court which we developed with Mitsubishi Estates back in 2000 and also Gresham St Paul’s on Gresham Street which we developed for Schroders’ occupation, again back in 2000. So it makes you certainly realise how old I am but in terms of retrofit, buildings from sort of end of the 1980’s onwards were generally robust, very, very flexible buildings so retrofitting them is relatively easy to turn them into grade A stock but buildings that were built earlier sort of in the 70’s, early 80’s were not at all robust, uh, generally slabs were slabs, lots of columns etcetera, etcetera. So those buildings are much more difficult to retrofit and either the City will allow you to demolish them or alternatively some are going to alternative uses so quite a few have gone to budget hotels. 65 Fleet Street which was bought, well in fact by Cheyne 2 years ago is being converted into student. So generally some of those pre-1985 buildings, um, are primarily either changing use or the City are realising that the existing buildings are so unfit for purpose that development makes sense.
Susan Freeman
It sounds as if the City are sort of more pragmatic about it perhaps than all the Local Authorities.
David Camp
Well yeah, I mean obviously needless to say the City are very pro-business so absolutely they are, yeah. I mean obviously carbon’s important to them. In fact, going on 70 Gracechurch Street which we bought with MTPP, our shareholder, it had a planning consent when we bought it which was a complete redevelopment. We’ve managed to get a revised consent which retains a lot of the existing building so obviously a very attractive carbon story. We managed to get additional space and better space as part of the whole story so the consent we’ve now got gets all the ticks in the box really.
Susan Freeman
That’s great. So we started talking about Oxford North and you seem to have moved from office towers to, if you like, innovation ecosystems and I wondered whether that shift comes from tenant demand or whether it’s just a strategic ploy but there does seem to be, have been a move so probably now’s the time to maybe talk about, you know, White City and, and then sort of moving on to Oxford North?
David Camp
Yeah. So in terms of what we know are called science and tech rather than life science because life science is a much more narrow than the broader definition, particularly now that AI obviously does form a key part of science in terms of being able to speed up the discovery process very substantially. So yeah, I mean particularly post Covid the science market has increased quite significantly providing you’re close a university or a hospital, research hospital which obviously is what drives, uh, science innovation. So yes, be bought White City Place from the BBC in 2015 and Television Centre from them in 2012 as an office play we also got great residential there etcetera, etcetera and we’ve got three buildings on Television Centre and White City Place which we’ve, again, repositioned. Initially, to be honest, we didn’t realise it was a great science location but as things evolved realised because it’s across the way from Imperial West Campus and also not far from the Imperial West Middlesex Hospital. It’s proven to be a great, uh, location for, for life science occupiers and we’ve got, I think, 8’ish life science occupiers there. We didn’t need to do, carrying back to the retrofitting flexibility because the BBC had built the buildings, uh, they are seriously over spec compared with any commercial developments so very, very high slab to slab to break good servicing and loads of power so they very much leant themselves to science space. So we did look at the key locations and inevitably, you know, everyone talked about the Golden Triangle. We started reviewing the Octagon in Cambridge markets so we got three assets in Cambridge, two of which are going through the planning process at the moment and then more relevant to you, um, we acquired the, again with Ontario Teachers, the Oxford North site which is owned by St John’s College and we’re developing it in joint venture with them.
Susan Freeman
How much space have you got there? I mean it’s a whole, it’s an innovation district isn’t it so it sounds pretty extensive?
David Camp
Well yeah, I mean it’s, the up line planning consent is for pushing a million square feet so the whole scheme is very substantial and will create a whole new district but obviously that will be on a phased basis. So the first phase where you’re taking space is three buildings totalling about 170,000 feet, um, and how quickly we roll out the other phases, um, will obviously depend upon tenant demand but hopefully your colleagues who will be, uh, moving there will love it because we’ve got a fantastic park effectively in the middle of the scheme, great amenity so even though it’s a new location, there’s a lot going on to occupiers feel it’s a good place to be.
Susan Freeman
I think we’ve moving in next month actually so it’s coming up, um, pretty soon so it sounds, it sounds like a great environment. And I was wondering whether, I mean, what sort of learnings there were from White City that you were able, that were able to translate to Oxford?
David Camp
I mean I think the main thing was a lot of people, us included, have been doing a lot research into lab space because it wasn’t a big market previously but I think because fortuitously we had a real life experience of what science occupiers need from, uh, how we work with them to get the right spec in White City, that definitely helped us a lot in terms of getting to the answer quite quickly and I think, you know, one of the things you find out, as I say, the White City space was not built as labs but occupiers have made it work so providing you’ve got some of the basics there, you don’t need to spend that much money on terms of creating science space rather than office space. Which is definitely something which is important to locations like Oxford.
Susan Freeman
Well I suppose you don’t know as you’re going through the development process what the demand is going to be for lab space as against other sort of tech type space?
David Camp
No and, um, and even since we started Oxford North, um, the whole balance between tech and science has changed and obviously it’s such a fast moving world it’s going to change a lot more isn’t it. So, you know, wet labs are the bits that need additional power, ceiling heights etcetera, etcetera. Once you’re moving into more, more tech you obviously need good power but to all intents and purposes it’s, you know, it’s office space really.
Susan Freeman
Yeah and, and actually getting the power for some of these schemes seems to be a bit of a problem?
David Camp
Yeah, yeah. I mean it’s right on the top of the agenda these days. I mean, places like Oxford and Cambridge but also parts of London now, again AI demands a lot of power, life science occupiers demand a lot of power so it’s a big issue right across the, the South East of England and, and really holding up quite a few projects. We’ve bagged a good quantity of power when we bought site but still before we build the whole thing out we still need to get more power and needless to say, when you get into it, that’s going to take quite a few years before we can get it. So part of our programme is based upon that as well.
Susan Freeman
And labs use quite a lot of energy don’t they so again, if you want the area to be as sustainable as possible, I mean what sort of things do you have to do to, um, deal with that?
David Camp
I mean I’m not sure you can, I mean clearly if the occupier needs the power they need the power so, so you obviously need to design the buildings as efficiently as you possibly can in terms of their power usage but clearly if you’ve got, well obviously Beta Centres is the extreme version of it, um, you just have to find a way of, of working around it really.
Susan Freeman
And is there any sort of secret to creating these districts and new neighbourhoods and actually having them come to life because it always seems to me, you know, as a developer you can provide, you know, you can build beautiful buildings but, you know, sometimes the area doesn’t come to life?
David Camp
Well I think the big lesson we learnt going back to 2000 was Chiswick Park which we bought with Schroders’ which is now I think 1.7 million square feet but I think what the, the key driver which effectively is the same as Oxford at that stage, out of central London, you know, business parks, whatever you want to call them tended to be individual buildings within sort of a sea of car spaces with pretty un thought through public realm and amenity. So the big move we did at Chiswick was to push all the cars to the perimeter behind the buildings so that we’ve got a central space which is a park and it’s just for people, not for cars and so I don’t know whether you’ve been there recently but I, even now 25 years on or whatever, the public space is in the middle is fantastic I think. So that’s how you create space that’s really what people want to be in rather than, you know, if you’ve got cars, or car spaces all over the place. So that’s the same as Oxford as well, the central park is the central park and the cars are outside of that.
Susan Freeman
And I just want to talk about, um, another scheme that I see you are involved with, the St Mary’s Hospital? Again that seems to me to have been quite a long time?
David Camp
Ah about 30 years I think.
Susan Freeman
I hope you haven’t been involved with it for that time.
David Camp
No, no, we haven’t been but I think they’d had a lot of, you know, obviously it’s one of the largest hospitals. It’s I think, ranked as the most dilapidated, well it’s high up the list anyway of dilapidated hospitals. So there’s a lot of demand to do something about it. Needless to say the commercials for a project like that are very challenging. I think, you know, the cost of building the new hospital on the site is around a million pounds so if you’ve got that burden. Obviously they hope to get some money from Treasury to actually build it out but they obviously also need to get some money out of the rest of the site for commercial uses. So we are now working towards a planning application but it’s really moving forward a step at a time in terms of how it’s going to be funded by the public sector. So yeah, they had, I think they’ve had probably three false starts before when they’ve tried to get steam off the ground but it hasn’t quite worked so hoping that this time it will.
Susan Freeman
Right okay and that presumably is with Westminster?
David Camp
Yes it is, yeah and I mean because it’s the, the Hospital Trust, Westminster obviously be more flexible or as flexible as they possibly can to get a planning consent that works for the hospital so we’ve obviously got other things in Westminster; 1 Victoria Street for Mitsubishi Estates is another one of the big, uh, West End projects we’ve got.
Susan Freeman
And with, I mean St Mary’s it abuts sort of another life sciences cluster doesn’t it so would the idea be to expand that as part of the hospital?
David Camp
Yeah definitely. Um, again obviously major hospitals are a central part of commercial space making sense in terms of science so the product there is being design, obviously again flexibly, but with the expectation that some of the space will be taken up by science occupiers.
Susan Freeman
So one of your buildings we haven’t spoken about and one that I really love is the Bloomberg building. Was that a different project because you were doing it for a sort of owner occupier so you were sort of very much working closely with them? Does that make it a different project?
David Camp
Yeah, no absolutely. I mean we’ve done a fair few build to suit owner occupier buildings, uh, we did, you know, Leaders headquarters, Rothschild’s building for Sky but Bloomberg is, is obviously the most well-known. Yeah, I mean it’s, it’s very different to other schemes because Bloomberg demanded what he wanted, um, because he was sort of personally involved in it and so some of the decisions he made were just not commercial decisions, they were just he wanted the building he wanted. So yeah, it means some of the design aspects are what you would normally expect but there’s a lot of it which is quite bespoke and needless to say, quite expensive. So you definitely wouldn’t have built that building as a speculative office building that’s for sure.
Susan Freeman
That must be a fantastic sort of project to be involved with but, uh…
David Camp
Oh yeah, absolutely, absolutely.
Susan Freeman
But, uh, anyway it seemed to have worked pretty, pretty well.
David Camp
Yeah I think everyone likes it hopefully.
Susan Freeman
And is there a project or, you know, are there projects that you would just love to do that are sort of on your bucket list but you haven’t quite got round to yet?
David Camp
That’s a good question. Um, well, you know, we’ve got some big masterplan projects on, on the drawing board; Royal Street by St Thomas’s Hospital is one which has got consent for a million and a half square feet in partnership with, uh, the Hospital Foundation. So I would love that scheme to get off the ground and create, you know, another masterplan. They’re, I mean they’re the, to my mind, obviously 1 Undershaft is a spectacular building. Bloomberg is a spectacular building. Creating new districts, uh, as we’ve done at White City is definitely the thing which I love because it is place making, uh, as well as trying to put, you know, obviously putting great buildings up.
Susan Freeman
Well I think that’s probably a great place to finish and thank you so much David. I mean it is phenomenal how many great buildings and places you have been involved with.
David Camp
Thank you. Yeah it’s been an exciting ride.
Susan Freeman
And I get the impression you really enjoy doing it as well?
David Camp
Yeah I do, yeah I keep thinking has the time come for me to retire but I enjoy it so I think well what’s the point of retiring if I enjoy it so, yeah.
Susan Freeman
No, don’t even think about it okay. Thank you very much.
David Camp
Thank you Susan.
Susan Freeman
Thank you David, for talking to us about all the moving parts that have to come together to create the iconic buildings and places you’ve masterminded. Mishcon de Reya looks forward to benefitting from the community you’ve now created at Oxford North and congratulations again on your 30 year anniversary.
So that’s it for now. I hope you enjoyed today’s conversation. Please join us for the next PropertyShe podcast interview coming very soon.
The PropertyShe podcast is brought to you by Mishcon de Reya in association with the London Real Estate Forum and can be found at mishcon.com/PropertyShe along with all our interviews and programme notes. The podcasts are also available to subscribe to on your Apple podcast app, Spotify and whichever podcast platform you use. Do continue to subscribe and let us have your feedback and comments and most importantly, suggestions for future guests and of course you can continue to follow me on LinkedIn and on Twitter @Propertyshe for a very regular commentary on all things real estate, Prop Tech and the built environment. See you again soon.