Irvine Sellar said this morning that he was looking for tenants to replace Transport for London at his 920,000 sq ft Shard development that are “more compatible with the building”.
Speaking at Profile’s Face-to-Face with Irvine Sellar event yesterday morning, held at Hogan Lovells’ London HQ, the outspoken property developer said TfL’s 190,000 sq ft lease in the Shard, SE1, which was terminated in June last year, would be taken up by more suitable occupiers.
Interviewed by Estates Gazette editor Damian Wild, Sellar said: “The type of rent they were paying and the type of occupier they are is not in-keeping with the kind we want. We are hoping to attract tenants from the banking, finance, and hedge fund sectors.”
Sellar said that having first conceived the original concept for the Shard in a Berlin restaurant with architect Renzo Piano in 2000, the London Bridge area was now “as lively as Covent Garden”, adding that “the location is great but the environment is terrible”.
Sellar described himself as an “unreasonable man” in business, but said it was this attribute that helped engineer his success. “Shaw said that the reasonable man adapts himself to the world, whereas the unreasonable man tries to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man,” he said.
james.buckley@estatesgazette.com
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