Battersea Power Station: flat sales in £9bn project now running at £10m a month as developers say scheme is back on track
Eager investors and home buyers were captivated by the spectacular riverside setting around the 1933 brick electricity generating station designed by Sir Giles Gilbert Scott and celebrated as the Cathedral of Electrons.
Yet by summer last year the whole £9 billion project looked to be stalling.
Long-standing senior executives departed amid building delays, rising costs, the struggle to find construction workers with the threat of Brexit, the exacting demands of English Heritage, falling prime London land values and the financial failure of the first phase’s main contractor, Carillion.
Public support dipped when the scheme’s developer asked to reduce the number of “affordable” homes on the site to make the project more viable.
It later explained that it simply wanted to delay some affordable homes but insisted that when the project is complete the target of 15 per cent of these lower-cost homes would be met.
The delayed Phase 3a is now due to be completed in “mid-2021”, it is claimed.
Phase 3 includes 539 flats in two buildings designed by international architects Frank Gehry and Foster + Partners, while a new high street — The Electric Boulevard — leading to a new Northern line Tube station, is also due to open in 2021, to which the Battersea Power Station Development Company has contributed £200 million.
The developer says off-plan buyers of Phase 3 flats were warned in 2017 that the original completion date would not be met, and about 50 purchasers demanded their deposits back.
“We have resold these at or above original asking prices,” says chief executive Simon Murphy who has been leading the 8,000,000sq ft , 42- acre project since last year.
He says 366 flats in Phase 3 have been sold, with 173 still available.
An optimistic Murphy claims the company wishes it had more homes to sell. “Sales are running at £10 million a month,” he says.
Across the scheme, average current values in Phase 1 are running at £1,650 per square foot, at £2,300 per square foot in Phase 2 — in the power station itself — and about £1,650 per square foot in Phase 3a, says Mark Hutton, in charge of sales.
Creating a buzz
On a warm summer’s Friday evening there is friendly feel about the place as the local community mingles with the new owners and visitors to the 23 restaurants, cafés, and retailers in Circus West Village.
What to do in Battersea Power Station
- Check out the latest films at the Archlight Cinema, a plush private cinema in one of the neighbouring well-soundproofed railway arches.
- Ride to the beat at Boom Cycle’s “party on a bike” spin classes.
- Melt your plastic at Vagabond Wines, where you load up an Oyster-style card with your credit and sample from more than 100 wines by the glass at the push of a self-service button.
- Eat Italian at Mother, the popular sourdough pizza restaurant in a railway arch.
- Hire the Village Hall — in another arch — available to all residents for events. People have married there.
- Try the Saturday market on the riverfront, where 50,000 people recently visited the sea food festival.
- If you’re a resident, check out what’s happening with The Power Club App.
The welcoming open-plan landscaping has opened up the riverfront and the place making seems to paying off.
Some of the best flats in the scheme, topping off the restored powers station, have breathtaking prices.
You will need £8.15 million for a three-bedroom penthouse, one of four surrounding one of the landmark chimneys in Boiler House Square.
The power station will include central London’s third-largest retail destination on three levels in two former turbine halls.
Apple staff will be upstairs in 500,000sq ft of office space, with 253 spectacular flats sitting over all of it.
There is a 2,000-capacity events space, and more cafés and restaurants. It is hoped that new Malaysian backers will invest enough to fund completion of the current phases and bring sufficient profits for the scheme to progress.
What’s on offer?
An average studio flat in Phase 3a starts at £510,000. In the Norman Foster-designed block, you can select from three interior themes: Monumental Light, Steam Palette or Cloud Palette, with colours and materials relating to elements in the original power station.
Many will hope these flats also have adequate storage. The winter gardens of Phase 1 — individual enclosed glass balconies for each flat — are now mostly used for storage, giving the new blocks a chaotic and unsightly appearance from the outside.
The Gehry-designed Prospect Place will “evoke the billowing sails of ships” we are promised and is creating some excitement, according to Murphy.
Two interior styles are on offer: the London Palette and the LA Palette.
A two-bedroom flat in Phase 3a will set you back £1.22 million. You can rent a one-bedroom flat in Circus West Village from £480 to £525 a week and this includes access to The Riverhouse residents’ club, concierge services, private cinema, dining rooms and The Spring gym.