Dubbed 30 Churchill Place, the new tower will boast 20 stories and 500,000 square feet of office space and is set to be completed in 2014. Construction will begin in the last quarter of 2011.
Already half the office space has been pre-let to the European Medicines Agency, and developer the Canary Wharf Group (CWG) says it is confident that the rest of the building will be leased by the time it is completed.
Chairman and chief executive George Iacobescu said: “We are very pleased to provide the European Medicines Agency with a building that responds to its new requirements, offering new technology and significant organisational and environmental efficiencies. It demonstrates our continued ability to deliver superior office space and infrastructure for a broad range of world-class organisations.”
According to CWG, approximately 97 per cent of office space in the Docklands is rented, despite the financial crisis and the recession which has followed it.
“Going ahead with Churchill Place is a vote of confidence in Canary Wharf,” a spokesman for CWG said.
“There’s always boom and bust in the London property market, and we’re expecting a shortage in 2013-14.”
Iacobescu told the Financial Times that the new office development was “the end of the beginning” for Canary Wharf.
Overall Canary Wharf contains approximately 14 million square feet of office and retail space, of which 7,900,000 square feet is owned by CWG.
Numerous banks and financial service companies have their European headquarters in Canary Wharf, including Barclays, Citigroup, Clifford Chance, HSBC, KPMG, MetLife and Thompson Reuters.
Approximately 90,000 people currently work in Canary Wharf, which is built on the site of West India Docks, which were closed in 1980.
Editor’s notes: 30 Churchill Place was completed in 2014 and as well as the EMA renting Levels 1 to 10, Ernst and Young (EY) agreed to lease Levels 11 to 21 in 2015.
Due to BREXIT, the EMA relocated to Amsterdam and then sublet its space to flexible workspace provider WeWork.
See the type of space WeWork provides in Canary Wharf here.
As of July 2023, 30 Churchill Place had 56,692 square feet of office space available to rent on Levels 11 and 13.
In June 2023, HSBC announced that would be vacating 8 Canada Square in Canary Wharf and relocating to the City.
The 45-storey property had been its home for two decades. The bank intended to leave in 2026.