Having finally secured a beachhead in London’s financial district, Brookfield Office Properties is wasting no time.
The company has just secured a long lease ownership of the London Wall Place development site by way of the deal it struck last month with Hammerson PLC, which had an option agreement on the property.
Omers real estate arm, Oxford Properties, is going to team up with Brookfield in a fifty-fifty joint venture to develop the 1.8-acre site, which is zoned for two office buildings.
In a press release Michael Cassidy, chairman of the City of London Corporation’s property investment board, described the site as a globally important location for corporate headquarters that will benefit from a new Crossrail link in 2018 that will provide a speedy connection to Heathrow.
Brookfield, which believes in scale in the markets that it is in, realized its long-held ambition to break into London’s financial district last month when it spent $829-million (U.S.) on a portfolio from Hammerson PLC that included three office buildings and a different development site.
Hammerson PLC sold the portfolio after the European real estate company’s strategic review determined that it should concentrate on retail properties such as shopping centres.
