Where to buy in east London: Stratford's Olympic success spreading to neighbouring areas with 33,000 new homes and the next Chiltern Firehouse

The Games fired the starting gun for Stratford’s success. Now business and cultural centres are being joined by an era of housebuilding.
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Lee Mallett15 May 2019

Seven years on from the 2012 Games and five from the opening of the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, Stratford is fizzing with development, spilling over and into the Lea Valley.

The huge success of the post-Games project is encouraging thousands of new homes and bringing investment from arts, architecture and creative engineering business along with new outposts for universities, museums and international institutions such as the Smithsonian.

“The emphasis is now on creating new neighbourhoods and the bits between the Olympic Park, the Royal Docks and the Isle of Dogs will gradually be brought into this vision,” says Dr Paul Brickell, director of regeneration at the London Legacy Development Corporation.

“We are focused on trying to make sure enough of the new homes will be lower priced. You will now start to see the Olympic legacy influencing more development further east in the Thames Gateway.”

New venue: a giant spherical live music and entertainment venue is proposed by the Madison Square Garden Company on a site it has bought just east of Stratford International station

By 2036, more than 33,000 new homes will be built in the area covered by the corporation’s planning powers.

New homes to rent in Stratford

Manhattan Loft Gardens — for “hotel living” Developer Harry Handelsman is to relaunch his dramatic Manhattan Loft Gardens tower and is switching from selling the flats to making them available to rent, short or long term.

It will “signal a new era of hotel living” claims Handelsman. Guests can check in for “weeks, months or years”. Handelsman wants to recreate the lifestyle of famous Manhattan hotels such as the Carlyle and the Chelsea: “A club, a meeting place, hotel and home.”

The aim is to have a 145-room luxury Stratford Hotel on the first six floors, with longer-term rental opportunities in the renamed Stratford Lofts, comprising 248 single- and double-height flats in the 30 storeys above.

Says Handelsman: “The coolest parts of London used to stop at Hackney. Now that’s extended into Stratford.”

Rents for flats range from £1,800 to £4,000 a month, with some penthouse lofts renting for £7,000 to £9,000 a month. A two-bedroom, double-height flat that had already been sold is back on the market through CBRE/Rightmove for £2.3million.

“The concept is genius”: Kom Patel pays £1,800 a month, including concierge, at Manhattan Loft Gardens

Kom Patel, 31, a freelance makeup artist, rents a one-bedroom furnished New York-style loft apartment at Manhattan Loft Gardens.

She says her ninth-floor home offers stylish “open living”, with tall walls for her to hang her own artwork and a room divider between her bedroom and living space that takes all her fashion magazines and books.

“I’m paying £1,800 a month with concierge,” she says. “I wish I could afford to buy.

“I saw this incredible building, and that it was linked to St Pancras Hotel and Chiltern Firehouse in Fitzrovia, and I thought the hotel concept was genius. That’s what really attracted me.

“The views from my flat are great and they are just incredible from the 36th-floor sky garden.

“There’s also a big firepit in the other communal outdoor garden on the 25th floor. And it has a DJ booth for parties.

“When the hotel opens next month we are going to get 24-hour butler service, too. We already get a linen service.

“It’s like living in a five-star hotel. And they hold lots of events so I’ve met most of the other residents.”

East Wick and Sweetwater

The park’s next two neighbourhoods, to be built in its western side, will have 1,500 new homes including 30 per cent lower-cost and the rest for sale and private rent.

1,500 new homes: East Wick and Sweetwater are the Olympic Park’s next two new neighbourhoods

East Wick and Sweetwater is a joint venture between housing association Places for People and contractor Balfour Beatty receives £78 million from Homes England, the Government’s housing delivery agency.

Work has started on Sweetwater, just north of the Olympic stadium. It will include 302 flats and townhouses, 35,000sq ft of business and creative space, shops, community gardens and a crèche.

Later, townhouses at East Wick will overlook the park. Completion is expected in spring 2021.

Fish Island Village

New residents are moving into this £125 million live-work neighbourhood south of Hackney Wick on the western side of the park. By housing association Peabody and housebuilder Hill, the architectural style reflects the local industrial heritage.

RIBA Stirling Prize-winning architect Haworth Tompkins masterplanned the scheme with co-architects Pitman Tozer and Lyndon Goode.

Phases one and two of Fish Island Village include 423 private, affordable rent and shared-ownership homes.

There is also 50,000sq ft on the ground floors of 10 proposed buildings, managed by shared workspace social enterprise The Trampery, to include 63 studio spaces and 50 co-working desk spaces, a café and event spaces.

The Trampery is collaborating with London College of Fashion and the British Fashion Council to offer 33 of the studios to “growth-stage” fashion designers.

Private sale flats start at £432,500 with Help to Buy for homes under £600,000. Thirty-five per cent, or 146, of the 423 homes are lower-cost.

Help to Buy: Paul Wynn bought at Fish Island Village in E3

Architect Paul Wynn, 32, bought his one-bedroom flat in Fish Island Village last year for £450,000, with a 40 per cent Help to Buy loan.

“For me it was the location, the price, the feel of the bars and restaurants and connections to Hackney and Dalston,” he says. “The Olympic Park has happened so quickly, it’s exciting to be part of something so well planned.

“We’ve also got institutions like University College opening up and some fashion studios are due to open in Fish Island Village soon. And then there is the whole East Bank development, with the V&A and Sadlers Well’s coming on stream in the park.”

Three Waters

Mount Anvil and Peabody have 300 homes in their Three Waters scheme, with 109 lower-cost, at the confluence of Bow Creek, Limehouse Cut and the River Lea. The site is near Bromley-by-Bow Tube. Prices start at £371,500.