Academic English: Writing II Final Assignment Waterfront redevelopment in Canary Wharf (London) Introduction The first negotiations over the future of the London Docklands started in 1971, four years after the East India Docks had been closed. Due to a lack of means for a renovation of the docks and to the increasing amount of larger cargo ships, all docks in the London Docklands were closed between the 1960s and the early 1980s. The area referred to as the London Docklands stretches from the east of the Tower Bridge on both sides of the River Thames and comprises 2200 ha of redundant docks (Home, 1990) and 88,5 km of waterfront (Page, 1989). This was at that time one of the most deprived areas in Britain (Page, 1989). In 1981 the London Docklands Development Corporation (LDDC) was put into existence by the conservative government of Margaret Thatcher. Their task was the redevelopment of the Dockland area and it was supposed to be achieved through a market-driven approach to the project. The LDDC was officially independent but in fact supposed to act according to the government's interest (Zehner, 2008). In this essay, I will describe the largest redevelopment project in the London Docklands, namely the Canary Wharf project. Furthermore, I will explain and analyze which factors led to the collapse of the project and the bankruptcy of the development company Olympia & York in 1992. The Canary Wharf redevelopment project Canary Wharf was by far the largest regeneration project not only in the London Docklands but even in Great Britain and in Europe by the 1980s (Zehner, 2008; Home, 1990). It started in 1987 and was the largest single development that was ever completed in the UK (Home, 1990). The whole project included the creation of 10 million square feet of offices, half a million square feet of shops, restaurants and leisure facilities, 6500 car parking spaces, and a 400- bed hotel with conference facilities. The construction site comprised an area of 71 acres partly built over water (Home, 1990). The first phase of construction began in 1988. In this phase, eleven buildings, all together including 440000 mē, were built. One of them is the One Canada Square Tower (Canary Wharf Tower) which is with 50 floors Britain's highest building. It was built between 1989 and 1991 and was designed in a postmodern architectural style with the utilization of glass, steel and marble. It is easily recognizable because of the pyramid shaped roof. Today, approximately 9000 people work in the offices of this building. In the West India Docks, another building block consisting of 13 single office buildings was built after an Anglo-American model (Zehner, 2008). According to Fainstein (2009), there are various examples of European adoption of US design models in the London Docklands. This was due to the Canadian development firm Olympia & York and the American architect bureaus Skidmore Owings & Merril having experience with designing buildings in the United States and at that time benefiting from tax relieves and freedom in planning in Canary Wharf. Collapse of the project As Canary Wharf was one of the biggest urban regeneration projects ever carried out in Europe, it is clear that setbacks and problems occurred. The complexity of the project in combination with some other factors and problems in the process of planning and constructing finally led to the collapse of the whole project in 1992, driving the development company Olympia & York into bankruptcy. One of the problems that contributed to the failure of the project was the incompatibility of such a huge project with the existing public transport infrastructure (Zehner, 2008). The area was in the beginning hardly accessible which made it little attractive for companies and private persons who did consequently not want to move to the area. According to Gordon (2001), there are six factors that contributed to the failure of the Canary Wharf project: a recession of the London property market, competition from the City of London, the previously mentioned poor transport connections, few British tenants who are willing to move to the area, complicated finances and overconfidence on the side of the developer. It was probably a combination of these factors which led to Olympia & York's bankruptcy in 1992, although Gordon (2001) puts emphasis on the last point, namely the underestimation of the complexity of the project on the side of Olympia & York. The development company took the Canary Wharf project over in 1987. It was a private company from Toronto which was owned by the Reichmann family. The company was very successful in the 1970s and 1980s which made them maybe "the world's premier office developer" (Gordon, 2001). Their most famous achievement is the World Financial Center which covers an area of 6 million square feet. It emerged within the New York's Battery Park City project which is often considered as a leading example of urban redevelopment (Gordon, 2001). Considering this achievement as well as other successes of the development company in the years before, nobody doubted that Olympia & York could also successfully deal with a project like Canary Wharf. Yet, this was proven to be wrong. The Canary Wharf project turned out to be twice as complex as the Battery Park project (Gordon, 2001) and the total cost of 5 billion pounds caused the company's bankruptcy (Breen, 1996). In the beginning, Olympia and York did not have difficulties financing the land for Canary Wharf because the LDDC sold it for low industrial prices. In order to make the project run from the beginning onwards, Olympia & York developed a strategy which made Paul Reichmann "one of the biggest real estate risk- takers of the last century" (Gordon, 2001). The strategy was to build first- class space right in the beginning of the project in order to immediately attract companies that make Canary Wharf a "major head- office location" (Gordon, 2001). Before 1992 this strategy did not work for the already above mentioned six reasons. The first four of these reasons all resulted in the difficulty of attracting enough tenants to ensure construction and permanent financing. Although much office space was on offer by 1992, almost none of the new companies were British corporations. The expectation of the development group that British corporations would move from the City of London to Canary Wharf because of the offer of modern and affordable office space was not met at all (Gordon, 2001). One reason for that reluctance might be the design of the new buildings. The urban design developed by the famous architects Skidmore Owings & Merril from Chicago was considered to look too American for British eyes. Therefore, Sir Roy Strong was asked to take part in the design team. As the director of the Victoria & Albert Museum, he was supposed to give advice on British taste and aesthetics (Gordon, 2001). Design, however, might not be the only reason for few British corporations moving to Canary Wharf. Another factor was the general attachment of the British corporate culture to the City of London. The reasons for which many British chief executives did not even consider moving were also based on informal social networks with friends and colleagues. Also clubs and other leisure institutions played a role in that case (Gordon, 2001). When the market collapsed and London went into recession, Olympia & York asked the British national government to move some offices to Canary Wharf in order to save the project. One possibility that was considered was to move the Department of the Environment from Westminster to Canary Wharf. Yet, as Canary Wharf was seen as a capitalist project par excellence, the staff of the Department of the Environment refused to move to the area. Later, two of the buildings that had been supposed to become governmental institutions were occupied by two public agencies, namely the London Underground and the Financial Service Authority (Gordon, 2001). So in the end various factors might have led to the failure of the Canary Wharf project in 1992. Nevertheless, many of them can be traced back to a general underestimation of the complexity of the project and consequently what Gordon (2001) calls "overconfidence" of the developer. On the other hand, it must also be said that without Olympia & York's strong (financial) commitment to the project, Canary Wharf would not be what it is today. Finally, the project recovered again for the opposite reasons that caused its collapse in 1992: the London office market boomed, there was less competition from the city, public transport was improved, some British tenants moved to the area, the project was conventionally financed and the developers were confident (Gordon, 2001). When the British government agreed on the construction of the Jubilee Tube Line connecting Canary Wharf with the City of London and providing the starting capital for the construction, this was an important step towards the recovery of the project and the property market. Initially, the government had refused to subsidize transportation infrastructure which contributed to Olympia & York's failure (Fainstein, 2009). The extension of the Jubilee Line was only one project that was supposed to improve the accessibility of Canary Wharf. The first project was the construction of the Docklands Light Railway which runs on abandoned viaducts. The first part of the railway opened in 1987 and included at that time 12 km of track and 15 stations (Home, 1990). The final opening took place in 1992. From that moment on, the DLR offered a ten minute journey to Bank station. Yet, in the beginning the service was relatively unreliable. This was due to problems with the new technology and with the construction of the extension to Bank Station (Gordon, 2001). In order to make the area also more easily accessible by car, the Docklands Highway was constructed. It was supposed to connect Canary Wharf with the edge of the city. Because of construction difficulties, the costs for this project continually increased as planning and constructing proceeded. This project exceeded all other road constructions, ever planned and carried out by the LDDC and the Boroughs, in complexity. When they capitulated, finally private construction managers were retained (Gordon, 2001). The Docklands Highway opened in 1993. With total costs of more than 300 million pounds, this road was the most complex and expensive that has ever been built in Britain (Gordon, 2001). The third project was the above mentioned extension of the Jubilee Tube Line. It was opened in 2000 and initiated a new phase of construction in the area. Between 2002 and 2004, twelve new office buildings were completed. The two highest are the buildings of the HSBC and the Citygroup Bank. The latter was designed by Sir Norman Foster in an English Modern architecture style (Gordon, 2001). Politically, the rehabilitation of the project was already obvious in 1997 when Prime Minister Tony Blair from the Labour Party welcomed the French President Jacques Chirac at the Canary Wharf Tower, declaring the project as a "symbol of the new Britain" (Gordon, 2001). The biggest project of the last years in Canary Wharf took place on the property of the former London Arena. At this site, 8 buildings with 43 floors including 1000 apartments, 2 hotels and several offices were built. In the Midwall Inner Docks two more apartment buildings were built to replace the in 1987 completed smaller complex (Zehner, 2008). Conclusion The Canary Wharf redevelopment project has exceeded all expectations in respect of complexity, costs and setbacks. The collapse of the project in 1992 and the bankruptcy of the development company Olympia & York was caused by various factors. The most important ones are maybe the underestimation of the project and the poor public transport. These are probably also the main reasons for so few British tenants moving to the area. A major reason for the recovery was the improvement of public transport facilities. The construction of the Docklands Light Railway, the Docklands Highway and the extension of the Jubilee Line made the area more easily accessible by connecting it to the City of London. Therefore, the Docklands became more attractive for companies as well as for residents. That the project was able to recover from this crisis and is now considered a success, can be seen in today's state of the area. Canary Wharf is today a city with 75000 employments mostly in the financial service sector, insurances, media, telecommunication and business consultancies. According to Zehner (2008), the attractiveness of the area is rooted in the mixture of functions such as work, leisure facilities, shopping areas and dwellings. References Breen, Ann (1996): The new waterfront: a worldwide urban success story, 18-21 & 212-213 Fainstein, Susan S. (2009): Mega- projects in New York, London and Amsterdam in international Journal of Urban and Regional Research Gordon, David L. A. (2001): The Resurrection of Canary Wharf in Planning Theory and Practice, 2:2, 149- 168 Home, Robert (1990): Planning around London's mega-project- Canary Wharf and the Isle of Dogs in Cities, 119-124 Page, Dr. Stephen J. (1989): Tourist Development in London Docklands in the 1980s and 1990s in GeoJournal 19.3, 291-295 Zehner, Klaus (2008): Vom maroden Hafen zur glitzernden Nebencity: die London Docklands- Eine Bilanz nach drei Jahrzehnten Strukturwandel (From derelict port towards a thriving new city: London Docklands- A conclusion after three decades of urban regeneration) in RuR 3/2008, 271-281