Property veteran John Baker on looking beyond central London for growth

Commercial Park Group is planning to transform streetscapes of ageing commercial buildings across the South East. A partnership between property developer John Baker and Sir Robert McAlpine, the firm is planning to deliver 2m sq ft of grade-A offices with an end value of around £2bn across the region. The business already has planning for offices at Gatwick Park in Crawley and Haywards Park in Haywards Heath, and last month submitted a planning application for a 140,000 sq ft office in Bromley, south-east London. Here, veteran property developer Baker – chief executive of Commercial Park Group and co-founder and former director of niche West End property agency Baker Lorenz – discusses why he is investing heavily in the South East. The times are changing Any property developer worth their salt knows that you have to truly believe that your project will succeed from the outset – and if you don’t feel it then don’t do it. It’s all about achieving a balance between experience and intuition. Developers have to be bold and ambitious to ensure things get done, but that ambition must be guided by the discipline of creating financially viable buildings that will stand the test of time in a particular area. This is especially important when you are attempting something completely new. That’s exactly the approach we’re taking at the Commercial Park Group as we gear up to deliver 2m sq ft of grade-A office space across the South East. By land mass it’s one of the biggest office projects currently under way in Europe –something that has never been done before in that region. I often get asked why we’re making such a significant investment into the South East – and that question is almost always loaded with the uncertainty of the current political and economic climate in the UK. We have to accept that a lot of people are waiting to see what happens with Brexit, it just sits at the back of your mind. But we rightly believe that the times are changing, with more and more people looking beyond central London for a place to both work and live a high quality of life. We have spoken with a lot of people who live in Bromley, Haywards Heath and Crawley, where there hasn’t been much new development in the past 20 years, and all them have said the same thing: if quality offices existed on their doorstep, they wouldn’t have a need or want to commute into central London every single day. These are all fantastic areas with a lot going for them. Bromley is close to Victoria, nearer to central London than Croydon and surrounded by some of the best countryside in the UK. Haywards Heath is further from London but it’s a beautiful little town that we are completely transforming with our streetscape. Gatwick Park is the centre of the pharmaceutical and aeronautical industries, with proximity to a major international airport. However, you go down there today, and the obsolescence issue is abundantly apparent. That’s something that is set to change, particularly as more and more people move to the South East and appetite for office space from the services sector increases. For many years office rents in the region have remained weak given a lack of development, but 2019 has seen the sector rebound and we are confident this trend will continue in the medium term. Understanding the dynamics of the local property market is vital for any new development – that applies to the South East as much as anywhere. I cut my teeth working on West End developments and could bring a wealth of experience of the market when I was working on 25 Hanover Square. I knew where the demand was, and I did my research into what workers in the West End wanted from their office buildings – everything from the lobbies to the bathroom facilities, even the most minor details like the shape and feel of a door handle. I used to travel around the best office buildings in the West End trying out door handles to get a real feeling for the market – to see what was out there, what was working well, and how we could make it better, because I always believed that we could. Admittedly, I never thought 25 Hanover Square would be the first ever office building to get £100 per sq ft – I’m not sure any of us did, but we knew we were on to something special, and that feeling has guided my investment decisions throughout my career.