With the opening of London’s Crossrail underground line due in the first half of 2022, construction work is set to start on some significant new projects along the route of the new line, according to Glenigan.
Property developers have long recognised the potential around the prime station sites along the new £19 billion line, which will connect Reading in the west via Paddington and Liverpool St to Shenfield in the east.
Today, with staff returning to offices and trains on the new Elizabeth Line set to start running, the pace of development is picking up.
Work on a major office scheme for Grosvenor Group, the £50 million Bond Street West Crossrail Station Development, started in October. Multiplex Europe is the main contractor on the 9582 sq m scheme which will cover six upper floors and part of the basement area of the new station where work will continue until summer 2023 (Project ID: 13032040).
Further east, tenders have been returned on the huge £394 million office and retail scheme at One Liverpool Street where a joint venture of Aviva Investors and TfL is developing a Crossrail over site development involving 260,000 sq ft of office space over ten storeys and 6,620 sq ft of retail space. Construction work is due to start this summer and run for slightly over three years (Project ID: 19180012).
Meanwhile at nearby 101 Moorgate, detailed plans have been granted for a £22.4 million office and retail/café scheme for an Aviva Investors/Allianz Real Estate JV and Crossrail which will involve offices above the Moorgate Crossrail shaft together with retail and covering a total of 10,162 sq m of space. Construction work is at the pre-tender stage and set to start this spring and continue for 17 months (Project ID: 12213579).
Some major new residential development is also set to generate construction work along the Crossrail route. Detailed plans have been submitted for Armourers Court, a £41.55 million mixed development around Woolwich Crossrail station in Greenwich. It will involve some 523 homes and commercial units to be built in four buildings around a landscaped podium and the east ventilation shaft and service buildings of the station. Work on the scheme for Berkeley Homes (East) and Connected Living is set to start early next year (Project ID: 20097704).
There are also new opportunities for smaller and specialist contracts on some of the outlying stations on Crossrail which are being refurbished ahead of the start of Elizabeth Line services. At Langley station in Buckinghamshire, tenders have been returned for a £1 million upgrade involving a new entrance and the creation of platforms of over 200 metres with work set to start in late spring this year (Project ID: 19265783).
Meanwhile, work to reinstate the Grade II-listed Finsbury Circus Gardens - the City of London’s largest open space which has been used to provide access to a Crossrail tunnel for the past ten years – is due to start later this summer. A joint bid is being sought from an architect and a landscape architect to deliver a new design for gardens and a pavilion (Project ID: 20236275).
