The EG Interview: Art-Invest’s Canada Water vision

This is a story about Canada Water – but not the part of the sprawling redevelopment that you might think. While British Land and AustralianSuper reimagine most of the more than 50-acre masterplan, a German investor-developer is turning an adjacent 10th of that into an office-led project that it thinks will redefine its own business. “I looked at this site originally and I thought, this is essentially the last major King’s Cross site in London,” says Ali Abbas, managing director of the UK arm of Germany’s Art-Invest Real Estate, standing over a scale model of the southeast London district. Most of the blocks, including those representing British Land’s scheme, lack detail. But fleshed out and lit up are the three buildings that comprise Art-Invest’s Canada Water Dockside project. As at King’s Cross, Abbas sees a chance to deliver something different at Canada Water. Not a reinvention, perhaps, but certainly a revamp. “Strategically, this is, to me, akin to what King’s Cross delivered,” he says. “You’re not pioneering here, but I do think, along with our co-investors AussieSuper and BL, collectively we’re being visionary.” Art-Invest’s London portfolio already includes the 88-flat 101 Cleveland Street, W1, in Fitzrovia and Mayfair’s Sackville House, W1. But Canada Water Dockside is a step beyond – a “signature project” for the business, as Abbas and his head of development Luka Vukotic put it. With the future of the office still uncertain, the team could be forgiven for some nerves as the planning process continues. But Abbas is having none of it: “As an investor developer operating across a range of markets, risk is just part of everyday life.” Twist and Rock The passion that Abbas and Vukotic have for the Dockside project is clear as they take EG on a near-hour-long ramble around the neighbourhood. And it is not just the offices across its Bjarke Ingels Group and HWKN Architecture-designed scheme that has the team enthused. It is the history of the surrounding area – Vukotic can unpack the history of Russia Dock Woodland park with a precision to rival any tour guide – and the people and communities that are part of it. “We’re not coming to create a place or ‘place make’,” says Vukotic, a former Argent project director. “We’re coming here to see what we can contribute to the place.” Specifically, Art-Invest is contributing 1.5m sq ft of office space on the eastern edge of the dock. The team reckons the project was the largest planning application in London when it was submitted in outline in 2021 and potentially one of the largest the capital has seen. The plans span three buildings, colloquially named for now for their shapes – A1 is “the Twist”, A2 is “the Rock” and building B is “the Cascade”. After outline planning consent was granted last year, Art-Invest has now put in reserved matters applications for two of the three buildings, the Rock and the Twist. The team hopes the applications will land in front of Southwark Council’s planning committee in the summer. Green and blue Vukotic points to three factors that drew the company to Canada Water. Firstly, its connections to the rest of the capital. “We come from [Art-Invest’s offices close to] Bond Street,” he says. “It’s about 15 minutes door-to-door from there. But it’s also directly linked to the City via the Overground and Canary Wharf is one stop away. You’re basically anywhere between seven and 15 minutes from the three major office markets.” Second, the existing communities in and around the site. And third, the ability to develop a scheme that emphasises health and wellbeing. “We have the dock itself, we have the Greenland Dock, where there is a watersports centre, and we have 100 acres of green space, including Southwark Park and Russia Dock Woodland,” he adds. “We’re surrounded by green and blue.” Abbas emphasises how closely Art-Invest has been working with British Land since it bought the site – his conversation is peppered with first-name-only references to Roger, Emma and Simon (that’ll be Madelin, Cariaga and Carter, respectively). “When I first acquired this, I met with Roger and we said, ‘Look, what we’ll do is work together for the overall vision of this – unless something is a conflict of interest or financially sensitive, we’re always going to do what’s right for the whole rather than have tribalism’,” he says. “Between Luka, myself and the rest of the team, we’ve been working together with Roger, Simon, Emma and their team and there’s been an ongoing collaborative approach to get it to where it is today.” That collaborative approach extends to more unexpected partners, such as sport retailer Decathlon, whose former shop on the site is now home to Art-Invest’s marketing suite. “When we got to the site, we met them as one of the stakeholders and saw a real opportunity,” Vukotic says. “We always had this vision of health and wellbeing, and we thought – ‘wow, on our doorstep, we have one of the largest sports equipment retailers in the world’. They never partnered with a real estate developer and investor, but when we told them our vision, our story, there’s quite a lot of overlap. It’s all about active transport, it’s all about local living, it’s about health and wellbeing.” The two companies have now teamed up to launch a £200,000 fund to back social and sporting initiatives in the area. Shock and disruption The company was putting down its deposit and exchanging on the site with previous owner Notting Hill Genesis as the UK was hit by its first Covid lockdown in early 2020. But Abbas is adamant that the events of the pandemic only accelerated the thought process he and colleagues were already having about the need for a new approach to offices. “There’s been a level of disruption, which has caused a bit of panic as to what’s going to happen to [offices],” he says. “But do you want to be in a sealed, thermostatic glass and steel building that probably doesn’t represent your plans for the future, or do you want to be in something more modern, forward-looking and high in ESG credentials, in a great location with good amenities?” It’s a rhetorical question, sure, but Abbas speaks with a confidence that he says comes from having the grey hair to demonstrate experience. “Experience teaches you to be steadfast and have resolve,” he says, back beside the Canada Water model. “We’re not shock jocks. We use our experience to read markets and brace ourselves for challenges. Offices are going through a shock and sense of disruption. “But I think that’s going to be focused and concentrated around the grey, the old, the capex-intensive, the stuff that can’t deal with legislative requirements. and the stuff that is not fit for purpose.” He adds: “The pandemic changed the rules of the game – what we are doing is leaning into that.” To send feedback, e-mail tim.burke@eg.co.uk or tweet @_tim_burke or @EGPropertyNews Photos: Art-Invest