Educating and engaging, revitalising and regenerating, the contenders for the title Collaborator of the Year span all sectors of the property industry across the length and breadth of the country, showing that working together can bring benefits for all. Samantha McClary counts down the top entries for the award
.
50 MIPIM
Love it or loathe it, there is no denying that MIPIM in Cannes is a top collaborator. The event, which celebrates its 27th anniversary in 2016, has brought together agents, investors, developers, lenders and local authorities from all over the world to build relationships and ultimately secure deals. It may be a four-day slog of early starts, late evenings and too many expensive drinks, but MIPIM is not only a collaborator in its own right, but the facilitator of many more.
49 McLaren & Citygrove
This pair have worked together to pull off arguably one of the shrewdest deals in London’s latest hotspot. After purchasing the Vauxhall Bondway Self-Storage site, SW8, for around £30m in 2012, the duo last year offloaded the site – with consented plans for a residential redevelopment – for a rumoured £100m to Dubai-based DAMAC. Swiftly off the back of that, the pair joined with Sports Direct’s Mike Ashley to secure the former John Lewis depot site in Chelsea, SW3. Can they do it again?
48 Sociable Surveyors
What began as an idea between two surveyors – Elliott Sparsis and Sebastian Abigail – in 2010 has now grown to become the only established, all-expenses-paid global internship programme in property, working with the industry to help bring in new talent.
47 OpenCity
Independent and not-for-profit, OpenCity works with key stakeholders across London, connecting planners, designers, developers and contractors with those who live, work and play in the city. Engagement, education and enabling form the three core principles of its aim to break down barriers and inspire people to demand high-quality spaces for current and future generations.
46 Pathways to Property summer school
The University of Reading with British Land and the Sutton Trust have collaborated to help promote the value of a career in real estate to the next generation. The summer school is offered to year-12 students at state schools and colleges across the UK. The free initiative provides lectures, site visits, mentoring and bursaries for further education.
45 Ellandi & Bridges Ventures
As the vast majority of retail investors flock to prime, Ellandi and Bridges Ventures have teamed up to invest more than £100m in some of Britain’s most run-down towns. The joint venture is focusing on emerging locations in the bottom 20% of the Index of Multiple Deprivations’ list of most deprived wards, where investment would generate “improved social outcomes”.
44 Exemplar & Aviva
Quietly labelled as NoHope Square, the redevelopment of the former Middlesex Hospital in London’s Fitzrovia had slowed to a crawl before the multi-award winning duo of Exemplar and Aviva stepped in. That age-old collaboration of a fund manager’s deep pockets and development expertise meant that the mixed-use development is now largely let. Cosmetics giant Estée Lauder took an 80,000 sq ft prelet of the 220,000 sq ft office space in early 2014 and almost all of the 235 luxury homes at the block are sold.
43 CPPIB & Hermes
These two pension fund giants have collaborated to bring forward development in the regions. Together their firepower is bringing forward the £1bn, 1.8m sq ft Paradise scheme in Birmingham and the 2.7m sq ft Wellington Place in Leeds.
42 Wells Fargo & Blackstone
By working together to buy $23bn (£15bn) of GE Capital’s real estate across the globe, Blackstone and Wells Fargo were able to pool their underwriting skills and complete the gargantuan trade in just three weeks. The two organisations’ different risk appetite profiles meant that together they could provide GE with a one-stop solution to exit a vast array of assets in one go.
41 TH Real Estate
TIAA CREF’s acquisition of Henderson has created a powerful fund manager in TH Real Estate that is willing to play the long game, investing in areas that other investors may seek to exit at the peak of the market. The next big move could be European PRS, and with a North American pension fund as THRE’s principle mandate, knowledge of a sector that is well established in the US will be easily accessible.
40 Brookfield & Qatari Diar
QIA and Brookfield’s £2.6bn takeover of Canary Wharf Group unravelled a corporate structure that had been fraught with complexity and animosity between shareholders for decades. By coming together, the pair established they had the financial clout and existing ownership to force a deal which has paved the way for the next chapter of development for the company and its famous estate.
39 Titanic Quarter
A hub of digital and creative businesses? In Belfast? Really. The team behind the city’s Titanic Quarter – Pat Power and Pat Doherty – have worked hard to create a new waterfront destination, mixing residential, commercial, tourism, educational and retail space together on a 185-acre site.
38 Property & sport
If there is one thing the industry likes to do together, it’s compete. In business but, largely, in sport. Business partnerships, connections and deals are formed on the golf course, at rugby matches, from the saddle of a bicycle and at triathlons and running races up and down the country. The flagship events, JLL’s Property Triathlon and Cycle To MIPIM, sell out in hours as thousands of property professionals seek to mix business with pleasure (or pain). Property’s collaboration with the world of sport has not just been a powerful networking tool, however, it also has philanthropic benefits, with the industry working together (while competing against each other) to raise millions of pounds for charity.
37 Smart Urbanism
The collaboration you may not have heard about, but that in a world of increasing nimbyism, one you might need to get to know. Kelvin Campbell is the architect and urbanist behind Smart Urbanism, a body harnessing the collective power of small ideas and actions to make a big difference. Campbell has a history of driving collaboration, advising the London mayor on bringing boroughs and major developers together to seek common standards to simplify housing. The Smart Urbanism social network now extends to more than 15,000 collaborators worldwide. Find out more at www.smarturbanism.org.uk
36 AXA & Sir Stuart Lipton
Construction of the Pinnacle in the City of London stopped so suddenly that builders left half-eaten sandwiches on site. The few floors of the core that did get built stood shamefully for so long that the site, once earmarked for the tallest building in the City, earned the nickname “the Stump”. Step up AXA and its investors and development guru Sir Stuart Lipton. It is a collaboration to watch at 22 Bishopsgate, as it is now known, as designs for the new tower were only revealed in the summer. But with a powerful investor behind it and a veteran force driving development, it won’t be long until the Stump becomes a pinnacle of success.
35 LandAid
The industry charity. The body, which raises money to improve the lives of disadvantaged children, brings together the big and small in the property industry, with supporters including Helical Bar, Bilfinger GVA, Allsop, Aviva Investors, Blackstone and 110 more. It works in collaboration with local charities through the donation of grants, joint funding and free property advice. The charity has raised more than £11.5m over the past decade.
Co-working is the word on every developer’s and designer’s lips. Workspace has to be collaborative if it is to attract the fresh, new TMT occupiers everyone is clamouring for. And it is not just the trendy tech bods that demand collaborative space. Even the lawyers are at it. Over the next six places in the list, we recognise some of the biggest players in co-working.
34 The Engine Shed
Bristol city council, Bristol university, and the LEP worked together to create the Engine Shed, which opened in 2013, with the aim of stimulating long-term economic growth by generating and encouraging innovation through collaboration. It acts as a melting pot for academics, entrepreneurs, investors and students and has the goal of becoming a self-sustaining model. Earlier this year, Bristol received £18m of funding from the government to create a second Engine Shed in the city.
33 Central Working
Small, but perfectly formed? Central Working, established in 2011, has five “clubs” providing space for more than 1,000 businesses across London and Manchester. The firm seeks not just to provide low-cost desk space but to “facilitate a community”.
32 Workspace Group
Workspace Group has 84 properties across London, providing collaborative workspace for 4,000 new and growing companies. It hosts more than 300 events in its properties each year and provides new technologies such as touchscreen networking system Vgreet, which gives customers access to the wide range of businesses operating from each building.
31 The Office Group
The Office Group provides design-led, flexible offices and co-working spaces for start-ups, small businesses and, increasingly, larger companies. Charlie Green and Olly Olsen co-founded The Office Group in 2003. The business now totals 27 buildings totalling 800,000 sq ft, mainly in London, but also in Bristol and Leeds, it has a total of 7,000 members and 2,000 companies. The business is collaborating with Network Rail to create workspaces close to train stations.
30 The Collective
Reza Merchant’s The Collective is best known for its fresh approach to student living, but the young entrepreneur wants to inspire more people to follow his lead. As well as setting up The Elevator – providing seed funding, incubator programmes, flexible workspace and mentoring – The Collective has teamed up with a number of partners to create innovate spaces across London. South of the river, it has partnered with Carl Turner Architects and Lambeth council to deliver Pop Brixton, a community-led initiative centred on supporting local businesses, entrepreneurship and creativity. In Ealing it has worked with the council to create the Doughnut Factory, W3. Taking over management of the co-working space from charity Action Acton, The Collective will refurbish the building in a bid to attract more start-ups and creatives to the area. And in Holland Park, it has teamed up with Wild Blue Cohort, a network of angel investors, to deliver creative incubator space at 205 Holland Park Avenue, W11. Working closely with the Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea, the space is due to open next year.
28 Derwent London
Not a collaborator in the traditional sense, although the developer does work closely with architects and its occupiers to make sure it delivers stand-out buildings. It secures its spot on the list for being a facilitator. Its spaces breed team-working and collaboration, with much excitement surrounding its White Collar Factory project at Old Street, EC1, due to open next summer.
27 Boris Johnson & Sir Edward Lister
When we presented Sir Edward Lister (or Eddie or Ed; he’s really quite relaxed about these things) with the EG London Award at last year’s Estates Gazette Awards, it was a relatively easy decision. Relatively because briefly we flirted with the idea of giving it to the mayor himself. But with Johnson the showman, we wanted to celebrate Lister as the man who makes things happen, the deliverer. In truth, that’s what makes them such a great partnership. Complementary skills, contrasting personalities, but a combination that has been powerful for the capital.
26 Help to Buy
Government may be criticised for focusing less on supply and delivery and more on demand, but its work with lenders on its housing guarantee schemes has enabled more people to get on the housing ladder. Its flagship Help to Buy scheme has, according to the government’s own statistics, helped more than 100,000 people buy a home since its introduction in October 2013.
25 Spacehive
Expect to see more crowdfunders on next year’s list as this ultimate collaboration, bringing thousands of small investors together to enable development of products across industries, grows. This year, Spacehive has proved itself to be a worthy contender in the Top 50 list. Set
up in 2012 by former architectural journalist Chris Gourlay, Spacehive has raised more than £3.5m for small projects. Its mission is to “make it as easy as possible for as many people as possible to bring their civic environment to life”. Current schemes include the Peckham Coal Line, which aims to create an elevated park linking two high streets in south-east London, the Wood Street creative hub, an artistic space for the community in Walthamstow, E17, and The Blossoming Rose, a plan to re-establish a once popular traders market in Rosehill, south London, to provide low-cost, start-up business space.
Business improvement districts – local businesses getting together to collectively improve their area – deserve their own section in our list of top collaborators. The next five positions celebrate some the best-known and most hard working BIDs across the country and some of the people behind them.
24 Heart of Manchester
Now in its second year, the Heart of Manchester BID is getting into the collaborative spirit. A standout success for the BID was joining with the Manchester Arndale Centre to extend its annual student shopping night across the whole of the district. The collaboration saw footfall increase by 61%.
23 Colmore BID
Birmingham’s Colmore Business Improvement District is safely into its second term and has already invested more than £3m in projects and services to enhance the district. Over the next five years a further £4m will be invested, focused on projects including the enhancement of Cornwall Street and space around Snow Hill Station. As Birmingham continues its renaissance, the work of this collaborative effort will become even more significant.
22 Better Bankside
Once a neglected area of London, the South Bank is now a hubbub of activity. That has not been without the bringing together of businesses in the area through Better Bankside. The long-running BID will over the next five years invest some £8m in continuing to improve the district.
21 New West End Company
Arguably one of the best-known UK business improvement districts, it has brought together occupiers and landowners with the aim of unlocking barriers to economic growth and strengthening the commercial success of Oxford Street and the surrounding area.
20 Pat Brown
The under-celebrated queen of collaboration. Pat Brown can be credited with bringing business improvement districts to London. A fact-finding
mission to New York 15 years ago created the Circle Initiative. The rest is history.
19 Changing the Face of Property
Competing firms working together to make sure they secure a bright future for the industry. JLL, CBRE, Knight Frank, Savills, Cushman & Wakefield, Bilfinger GVA, Colliers International, Gerald Eve, Strutt & Parker and BNP Paribas Real Estate have united to help promote property as a career choice to a more diverse audience.
18 Berkeley Group & National Grid
Berkeley Group is well practiced at creating joint ventures to bring forward much-needed housing, but its partnership with National Grid is something different. Securing a deal with a body such as National Grid is not without its hurdles and while the land is in some of the most sought-after areas of London, getting it ready for building and occupation will not be possible without further collaboration with local and national stakeholders.
17 The northern powerhouse
Barely a day goes by without some mention of the northern powerhouse and work is under way to bring the northern cities together to create a hub of investment and activity to rival London. While it is mainly talk at the moment, powers are starting to be devolved and the high level of talk going on means that this collaboration is definitely one to watch for the top of our list next year.
16 Tech City
Constant networking events and co-working spaces centred on Old Street, EC1, have created an ideas marketplace that is disrupting traditional business models. Tech City is a collaborator, not only for its exponential growth in the past three years but for its work championing diversity in all forms and pioneering initiatives to connect with local communities. Though many companies have scaled up and moved out, marking a maturing sector, Tech City’s collaborative focus has been instrumental in the embryonic stages of these businesses. Schemes with other cities to create digital hubs has given birth to a “Tech Nation” placing the area as fundamental to our national – and global – economic fabric.
15 Land Securities & Glasgow city council
Together these two were brave enough to embark on the UK’s first tax incremental financing scheme. The £80m TIF, funded by the council, helped unlock more than £300m of private investment through the development of the Buchanan Quarter.
14 Development Securities & Cathedral Group
The coming together of the listed and corporate with the creative and edgy could mean big things. It is early days, but with a new name – U+I, borrowed from a union motto of “united and industrious” – these two are clearly proud of the pairing.
13 Sir Howard Bernstein & Richard Leese
Manchester is the poster child of effective local government. What’s more it is a Labour local authority that is loved and trusted by a Conservative government. The backbone is chief executive Sir Howard Bernstein and leader Sir Richard Leese, whose 20-year partnership is still going strong. Like their local government peers, they prioritise jobs and housing. But unlike many, they are as comfortable persuading the likes of Abu Dhabi’s Sheikh Mansour and the Beijing Construction Engineering Group to invest in the city as they are convincing residents that they have their interests at heart.
12 PiLabs
Europe’s first property-focused accelerator programme, PiLabs is a collaboration between entrepreneur and investor Faisal Butt and Cushman & Wakefield that seeks to bring technology and property closer together. It works through team mentors, financial backing and support with visionary start-up property disruptors.
11 Brett White and TPG
True collaboration is disruptive. It is about breaking down and rebuilding from the inside (p32), and there is no denying that Brett White’s arrival at TPG has been disruptive. Could pairing White’s ambition with TPG’s firepower be the collaboration that will disrupt the advisory world? Major acquisitions have already been sealed – Cassidy Turley, DTZ and Cushman & Wakefield – and don’t expect White to stop there. He has his eyes firmly on the number one spot.
10 Greg Clark
Devolution is something politicians talk about when they are in opposition. In government they turn into centralisers. That was a truth until Greg Clark rolled into the Department for Communities and Local Government; first as a minister, and since May as secretary of state. In Manchester, he has found a local authority he can rely on, and helped guide others on what they need to be similarly entrusted. Now working with several councils, he has formed a powerful partnership that promises to deliver a revolution in the northern powerhouse.
9 Freehold
What started as a chance encounter between two men that led to an “oh, you’re… me too” moment has now grown to a network of more than 700 people that has changed the way many businesses in real estate think and behave. Freehold has united the forward-thinking in the industry and created a platform for property’s LGBT community. An industry that is widely considered to be less than diverse when it comes to sexuality is now clamouring to host Freehold events. Collaboration at its best. People power.
8 Nigel Hugill & Robin Butler
Is this duo the greatest regeneration collaboration? Working together for more than two decades, this pair have played key roles in the regeneration of White City, Stratford and Greenwich Peninsula. Now, through their latest vehicle, Urban & Civic, and its reverse takeover of Terrace Hill last year, the pair are set to take the regions by storm, muscling in on – and winning – some of the most hotly contested projects in the UK, including the 6,500-home Waterbeach Barracks site in Cambridge, and Manchester’s Origin and Ramada plots.
7 The Fountain Workshop
The King’s Cross Partnership is a big fan of the little guy and has a history of working with small subcontractors with expertise in their niche. One such partnership is with Kent-based water feature designer The Fountain Workshop. But the collaboration goes further than that. Small and big working together is good, but public realm, art and technology is even better. Together the pair, with designer OLIN, created a set of fountains at Lewis Cubitt Square in King’s Cross that can be app-controlled, turning a water-based piece of art into an interactive game. The Granary Squirt app (an homage to Nokia’s Snake game) was launched this summer and has already been downloaded by several thousand people.
6 Wild West End
London landlords the Crown Estate, Grosvenor, Shaftesbury, the Howard de Walden Estate and the Portman Estate have joined forces to promote green infrastructure throughout the capital. The first Wild West End sees the Crown create 2.5-acres of green space across its Regent Street and St James’s holdings. The collaboration is supported by the mayor of London and the Wildlife Trust.
5 Appear Here
When the godfather of retail, Philip Green, is willing to work in partnership with you, Transport for London provides space for short-term rentals at one of its busy Tube stations and when more than 750 landlords and 10,000 potential tenants sign up to your concept, two years after your launch, you know you’ve got a business that works well with others.
Step up Appear Here. The pop-up retail venture was founded and is run by 23-year-old entrepreneur Ross Bailey. The concept is simple: an online site that links up landlords sitting on empty units with retailers looking for pop-up space.
But the concept is not just simple, it is effective. The company boasts a growth rate of 500% year-on-year and over the past year has delivered some of its property clients 100% returns and 90% occupancy.
With TfL at Old Street Station, EC1, Appear Here created an ever-evolving Underground station. Throughout the year, seven spaces on the station concourse were given exclusively to Appear Here users for flexible rents. There was a mix of different sizes and price points to allow for big brands and small brands to sit alongside each other.
Since the new Old Street Station launched in May 2014, more than 150 new brands have appeared there, the average occupancy has been 98% and there have been rental increases of more than 100% across the pop-up units for TfL.
Through its collaborative efforts, working hard with landlords and tenants alike, Appear Here has turned pop-up from a dirty word into the next big thing.
Read an interview with Appear Here founder Ross Bailey >>
4 Argent Related
Take a developer that has transformed King’s Cross from grotty and uninhabitable for many serious businesses to one of the hottest addresses in town and add another that is turning an unloved and potentially undevelopable part of Manhattan into the latest hip district and a powerhouse is born.
Formed in March this year, the joint venture between the UK’s Argent and US-based Related Companies has set its sights on big things. The pair will pursue large-scale regeneration projects across the UK. The 7,500-home Brent Cross Cricklewood was the jv’s first quick win, followed by the regeneration of Tottenham Hale, and it wouldn’t be too great a risk to put a bet on them claiming the prize in the race to redevelop London’s Euston station.
Related, which is developing Hudson Yards in New York, provides a strong balance sheet and four decades in the private rented residential sector, while Argent supplies the vision and drive that has created and continues to create “new pieces of city” at King’s Cross, Paradise Circus in Birmingham and at Manchester Airport.
Argent says a tie-up with Related is more than the normal joint venture. It wanted a collaborative partnership that was long-term and would give it access not only to a significant warchest but to complementary sector experience and a supplementary knowledge base, particularly in residential.
The collaboration aims to bring overseas capital and experience to bear on the UK property market and to be at the forefront of the nascent build-to-rent sector. And with around 10,000 homes and hundreds of acres of development land secured within their first few moments of working together, this team run by Related’s Ken Wong and Argent’s David Partridge is heading to the front of the queue.
3 Battersea Power Station
Numerous investors and developers tried to turn Battersea Power Station from an iconic derelict on the banks of the Thames into a bustling new district of London. Many invested large amounts of money but never quite broke ground and started work. Until Malaysian investors SP Setia, Sime Darby and Employees’ Provident Fund bought the site for £400m in July 2012.
Retaining the development team that had been working for the 38-acre site’s former Irish owner, Treasury Holdings, this trio of investors made sure work actually began. Although it is far from complete, more work has been done on site since 2012 than ever before.
The first development brief for Battersea Power Station was drawn up in 1983 and since then it has passed through the hands of developer John Broome, Hong Kong entrepreneur Victor Hwang and Treasury Holdings. Many uses have been envisioned, from amusement parks to film studios and finally to residential, offices, shops and restaurants. And while the power station will always court controversy – currently for ramping up house prices in Battersea – it has also been the catalyst for bringing the Northern Line to Battersea, a whole host of development potential and for achieving the almost impossible of having three starchitects – Frank Gehry, Lord Foster and Rafael Vinoly – deliver on a single site.
The proof of the pudding will, of course, be in the eating, but with many of the homes pre-sold, the station team are powering ahead.
2 West Midlands Combined Authority
Birmingham is going through something of a renaissance. It is attracting big business away from London – Deutsche Bank, HSBC, HS2 – providing it with impressive take-up figures. Overseas investors are feeling comfortable, big-name retailers are making their mark in the city, and its good fortune is spreading beyond the city limits.
That spread can be attributed to the ability of local authorities in the surrounding areas to work together. And while a submission for devolved powers has only just been handed to government, the West Midlands Combined Authority has set itself up to make big moves for the whole region.
The WMCA has set itself ambitious targets, including closing the productivity and public spending gap, working alongside the NHS and police, and extending a collaborative hand to the region’s third sector to use public sector reform to explore joint working programmes. It has also committed to take forward a transport investment plan and to increase the supply of new development land.
With Birmingham, Coventry, Dudley, Sandwell, Solihull, Walsall and Wolverhampton councils working together with neighbouring district and county councils and the three local enterprise partnerships – Black Country, Coventry and Warwickshire, and Greater Birmingham and Solihull – the WMCA would be the largest combined authority in the UK and the country’s second biggest economic area after London.
With this power and the track record that Birmingham has provided over the past few years, The Collaborators judges felt the WMCA had shown greater strength than the northern powerhouse – and with less government promotion – securing it our runner-up prize.
1 Transport for London
When the words Transport for London are muttered, collaboration is not usually the first thing that comes to mind. But that is why the public body is awarded our top collaborator spot this year.
It is unlikely that TfL is ever going to be celebrated by the man on the street. Overcrowded buses and frequent Tube strikes will put paid to that. But commercially, and collaboratively, TfL should be celebrated.
In February this year, the body officially launched its search for a host of property partners to help turn more than 50 sites in its 5,700-acre London portfolio into 10m sq ft of homes, offices and shops.
Proceeds from the TfL Property Partnerships framework, expected to total more than £1bn, will be reinvested into the transport network, making this a collaboration that provides much-needed housing and commercial space as well as the funding that supports the infrastructure so necessary in making regeneration work.
And TfL’s collaborative efforts go even further. A pairing with Appear Here to transform Old Street Station, EC1, certainly raised a few eyebrows. A virtually unheard-of new business that fills space with stores that want to be in residence for only a matter of weeks? It has TfL written all over it. Or not.
But the unlikely collaboration worked well. Old Street was a prime location that was underutilised. Above ground, around the roundabout, were some of the trendiest businesses, bars and residents. Below ground was just grotty. But by granting super-short-term leases on seven spaces on the station concourse, TfL and Appear Here have transformed Old Street for its 23m users. More than 150 brands have taken space in the station, occupancy has been at 98% and a 100% rental increase across the pop-ups has been secured. The collaboration has also helped entrepreneurs get the business breaks they needed.
But TfL’s partnership work goes beyond making use of empty space in functional Tube stations. It is also seeking to bring its “ghost stations” back into use.
Ajit Chambers, a former banker, has been given access to 34 ghost stations after drawing up plans to turn them into art galleries, nightclubs, restaurants and museums to deliver a new stream of revenue to TfL.
And TfL is not ruling out other partners. The first of eight ghost stations was put out to tender in May, with innovative developers being sought to bring Down Street Station in the heart of Mayfair back to life after 90 years of disuse.
Aside from traditional property partnerships seeking to regenerate TfL space, the body has for some time been working quietly with artists and others both to better utilise its portfolio of land and other assets and to promote a new image. Over the past 15 years, it has been working with a host of artists through its Art of the Underground division and more recently has teamed up with a pop-up cinema to run underground movie nights. It has also proudly covered buses and trains in rainbow colours for London Pride.
So, while collaboration with the unions to banish the all-too-regular Tube strikes (or threat thereof) may be some way off, TfL has quietly but impressively teamed up with some of the hottest names and opened up its vast landbank for joint ventures, managing to make two plus two most definitely equal five.
