黑洞社区

Developer Berkeley has confirmed it is interested in bidding to buy the site of the grade-1 listed Battersea Power Station scheme out of administration.

Chairman Tony Pidgley told 黑洞社区 he would be assessing the 拢5.5bn development project, which crashed into administration with debts of over 拢500m on Monday.

Alan Hudson and Alan Bloom at Ernst & Young were appointed administrators to the scheme, and are thought to be looking to sell the site as a package.
Asked if he was interested in looking at the scheme, Pidgley said: 鈥淥bviously it鈥檚 about whether everything is right. But the short answer is yes.鈥�

Pidgley, whose firm Berkeley has recently purchased the 52-storey Beetham Tower scheme on Blackfriars Bridge Road out of administration, declined to elaborate further on potential plans for Battersea.

Other developers thought to be interested in the scheme are understood to be Development Securities and British Land. Chelsea Football Club has also been linked to the scheme, having engaged former Land Securities London boss Mike Hussey鈥檚 development vehicle Almacantar to study the project.

Four subsidiaries of Battersea Power Station Shareholder Vehicle Limited, the project holding company 54% owned by Irish developer Real Estate Opportunities (REO), went into administration with debts of 拢502m.

Of that 拢324m is owed to Lloyds Banking Group and Ireland鈥檚 National Asset Management Agency (NAMA), and 拢178m to entrepreneur Victor Hwang鈥檚 Oriental Property. REO said in November that the subsidiaries were 鈥渃urrently not in a position to satisfy these demands for repayment.鈥�

REO said in a statement the administration does not apply either to REO itself or to holding firm Battersea Power Station Shareholder Vehicle Limited.

The news came as architect Terry Farrell & Partners called for a radical new approach to tackling the scheme, which has now defeated four separate attempts, including one by Hwang, to redevelop it. Sir Terry said: 鈥淲e have to learn lessons from the problems that have thwarted previous attempts to redevelop this landmark.鈥�

Ian Simpson, co-founder of Ian Simpson Architects, which was working with Rafael Vi帽oly鈥檚 design on the detail of the 拢50m first phase, said: 鈥淚t鈥檚 all very disappointing. I鈥檓 hoping that at some stage the project will move forward. It would be a shame if everyone鈥檚 time and effort over three years to get planning permission were wasted.鈥�

Simpson said the speculative proposal from Terry Farrell & Partners was simply to be expected. 鈥淚鈥檓 sure everyone is going to come up with proposals now. It [Farrell鈥檚 proposal] is a 鈥榮omething I prepared earlier鈥� scenario, so I presume it has just been tweaked.鈥�