April 2010

£100 Million Homes for Sale Flats in the lavish One Hyde Park are back on sale after a year-long break. But will anyone still pay this kind of money? As with all things very expensive, if you have to ask the price, then you can’t afford it. That, at least, appears to be the principle underpinning the sales pitch for One Hyde Park, London’s priciest residential scheme, by the high-profile developers Nick Candy, 37, and his brother, Christian, 35. This week, a handful of select individuals —  upper-crust, pinstriped buying agents and those of their clients still wealthy enough to spend seven figures on a fourth or fifth home — will be invited to view a show flat in one of the four elongated hexagonal tower blocks opposite Harvey Nichols, in Knightsbridge. These, you will understand, are not the kind of flats whose details you can find on a card in an estate agent’s window. The websites of companies selling them give only the barest information. The Candys confirm that prices start at “approximately £5m” but refuse to comment on the price of the four penthouses, one of which reportedly sold for £100m. The development is due to be completed in October. The official unveiling of the show flat on April 20 marked a second attempt to market the scheme, with 43 of the original 86 properties believed to remain unsold. It follows a 12-month “pause”, during which the Candys and their Qatari partners in Project Grande — the company that owns One Hyde Park — announced they had stopped selling because of the global downturn. It seemed not even the bulletproof windows, baths hewn from wood, marble worktops, floor-to-ceiling fridges, panic rooms, eye-scanner security systems or the five-star services of the neighbouring Mandarin Oriental hotel could keep up interest — or prices. The recession has proved to be a challenge for the two boys from Surrey, who rode the property boom of the Noughties, skilfully capitalising on the demand — especially from overseas buyers — for superexpensive London homes. They bought their first flat in Earls Court, west London, in the mid-1990s with a £6,000 loan from their grandmother; they now share the Belle Epoque, a 25,000 sq ft duplex penthouse in the tax haven of Monaco, where they have a fleet of fast cars and superyachts. Last year, the brothers, who count Kylie Minogue and Gwyneth Paltrow as clients, were estimated to have doubled their fortune from £120m to £330m, according to The Sunday Times Rich List. They themselves have claimed to be worth more than £750m. More recently, however, there have been whispers that all is not well within their empire. Staff have left and, last month, the brothers relocated from their palatial Westminster HQ to more modest offices in Chelsea — a spokesperson insists the move was the result of an offer too good to refuse. Nevertheless, several of their projects have failed or are struggling. Plans have been scrapped for the redevelopment of the Middlesex Hospital, in London, renamed Noho Square, which suffered in the wake of the problems at the Icelandic bank Kaupthing. Christian’s CPC Group, a development company that is part of the Project Grande joint venture, also defaulted on a £240m loan on an eight-acre site in Beverly Hills, California, earmarked for luxury homes. Then there is the long-running legal spat between the Candys and their Qatari royal former partners in the £3 billion Chelsea Barracks scheme, which was withdrawn after falling foul of Prince Charles and the planners at Kensington and Chelsea council. The High Court is due next month to hear demands by the brothers that they are still entitled to £81m that they would have been paid by the Qataris had planning permission been granted for the Lord Rogers-designed scheme. So a lot is riding on One Hyde Park (or 100 Knightsbridge, as Royal Mail insists on calling it) — and the ease with which the flats sell could reveal much about the state of the very top end of the London property market. The Candys themselves are predictably bullish. “The excitement about One Hyde Park is being felt around the world,” said Nick, who is no stranger to hyperbole, in an interview in Tatler. However, despite the promise of all those over-the-top Candy design features — the sunken baths, the gold resin, the black onyx, the self-playing grand pianos, the Otoro chandeliers and the Stockinger safes — are people ready to pay that much money to live in glass-and-concrete towers that look as if they have been transplanted several miles westwards from Docklands, even if they have been designed by the Richard Rogers Partnership? After all, at £5,000-£6,000 per sq ft, the price of the flats will be more than four times the central-London average. Philip Selway, head of the newly created global property wealth division at Knight Frank, a joint selling agent for the scheme, is hopeful. “It is quite spectacular,” he says. “I’ve never seen anything quite like it before. It has an exceptional style and a certain cachet. There is a lot of excitement about getting inside.” Once in, viewers, all of whom will be expected to pay a 40% deposit, can choose between dark or light wood themes and park or city views. Jonathan Hewlett, head of London sales at Savills, which is also marketing One Hyde Park, says the scheme will benefit from London’s continuing popularity with overseas buyers. “There is noticeable interest in the very top end of the market from Russia, Hong Kong, China, Singapore and Malaysia,” he says. “London is still seen as a No 1 destination in which to invest and live.” Robert Bailey, whose eponymous agency specialises in finding homes for the super-rich, believes the market, which has recovered quickly from its 25% fall from peak to trough, may not surge upwards. “It all feels a bit frothy,” he says. “It is all driven by shortage. There may be a bounce if the Conservatives get in, but I see it slowing down as everyone gets realistic.” 10% of New Homes Not Meeting Legal Requirements At least one in 10 new homes in Britain do not meet legal requirements for energy efficiency, condemning tens of thousands of householders to higher energy bills, and exacerbating climate change. The government has identified improving households' energy efficiency as the best way to reduce carbon emissions at the same time as keeping a lid on rising utility bills. Since April 2008, all new homes have had to meet tough standards on draught proofing, lighting and heating. All homes require an Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) indicating how they rate. But at least 30,000 of the 300,000 homes built since then do not meet these legal standards, according to official figures just released. Andrew Warren, director of the Association for the Conservation of Energy, said: "Buying a home is the biggest single purchase people will make in their lives. With energy costs mounting – never mind the environmental issues – it's perfectly respectable to expect that buildings meet the minimum legal standards for energy efficiency." A spokeswoman for the Department of Communities and Local Government (CLG) said she was not aware of any builders or companies being prosecuted for failure to comply with new standards. Local authorities are in charge of compliance. A spokesman for the LABC, which represents local authority building control departments in England and Wales, claimed the new regulations were mired in confusion. The CLG spokeswoman confirmed that non-compliant new homes can still be sold and used. She said there was no central register of non-compliant homes and suggested that an explanation for the large number of homes that fail to meet new standards might be that new homes built as conversions of existing buildings, such as a barn, do not have to comply fully. At the same time, builders are allowed to "block average" new developments that contain flats with different energy efficiency to average the minimum requirement. Homes which were granted planning permission before 2006 but were built after 2008 are exempt. According to the junior housing minister Ian Austin, 743 new homes – or 0.24% – built since April 2008 are rated in the top EPC band. About 180,000 homes are rated in band B, and 89,000 are rated in band C. New homes built must be at least a band C, with higher requirements for housing association and council homes. The government figures do not divide private and public sector housing. Experts are sceptical about the accuracy of these official figures. Energy efficiency assessments are carried out by local government inspectors, or increasingly, poorly regulated private sector assessors hired by developers. Local government inspectors said many private assessors do not want to apply the rules too strictly for fear of losing work. The government announced recently that in future new homes would have to be 25% more energy efficient than existing rules stipulate. E-Ink We have seen the future of newspapers, and its E-ink. This concept features a semi-transparent surface to display text and images. Hollywood Sign Hotel Architect Christian Bay-Jorgensen has come up with one of Hollywood’s most startling architectural proposals yet – he wants to transform the Hollywood sign into a series of 90ft tall hotel blocks. The idea certainly seems to fit into Hollywood’s La La Land reputation. And it would be a solution for the sticky situation currently unfolding in the Hollywood Hills. Although the iconic Hollywood sign is publicly owned, the land around it is not and is ripe for development. The current landowner is threatening to build an identikit housing development in front of the sign, obscuring it from view, unless someone can take the land off their hands. But although Bay-Jorgensen’s idea might appeal to a private investor, and there are many who would surely see the dollar signs pinging up in front of theit eyes at the idea of selling rooms in the Hollywood sign, it is unlikely to come to fruition. Chris Baumgart, chairman of the Hollywood Sign Trust, said: “We’re always intrigued, amused by people’s creativity,” he said. “Let’s not forget, this is Hollywood.” Local residents are however pitching together to try and raise the cash to buy the land as an alternative, although with a target of $12.5 million dollars they may need a helping hand from some of Hollywood’s high-profile millionaires. Creative Billboard Advertising Anando Milk, from India, wanted to increase milk consumption among children, so the McCann Erikson Agency came up with this amazingly creative ad placed on one of Mumbai's buildings, where you can see a child strong enough, a benefit of the milk, of course to move part of the building itself. The Haitong Building --a well known Shanghai landmark-- has a unique curved top, so this building ad, by Firstell Communications Agency, was placed on the opposite building, creating the ilussion that the powerful gust from a Midea electric fan has caused the wave design. "Wash me" says this clever ad for Alco's cleaning products, created by Alma Agency in Chile. Nike's "Run Through The Wall" ad spans two buildings: the first one's got a cracked image of the building in the shape of the running man, while the second one has the actual runner with the Nike logo. A fascinating ad for LEGO, made by Ogilvy & Mather agency in Santiago, Chile. Yacht The Heck In case you are looking to purchase a small boat and want some inspiration...    Streetwise Maps There was a break-in at Streetwise Berkshire offices in April. Fortunately as the servers are located in Docklands and Maidenhead the online mapping service was not affected. Police have issued cctv images of the 2 suspects. It is thought they were petty criminals looking to fund a Smacko habit... www.streetwise-maps.com - Cheaper Maps Online QUICK CONTENTS £100m Homes Flats in the lavish One Hyde Park are back on sale after a year-long break. But will anyone still pay this kind of money? More New Homes Not Meeting Legal Requirements At least one in 10 new homes in Britain do not meet legal requirements for energy efficiency. More E-ink We have seen the future of newspapers, and its E-ink More Hollywood Sign Hotel Architect Christian Bay-Jorgensen has come up with one of Hollywood’s most startling architectural proposals yet More Creative Billboard Advertising Anando Milk, from India, wanted to increase milk consumption among children, so the McCann Erikson Agency came up with this amazingly creative ad.  More Yacht the Heck In case you are looking to purchase a small boat and want some inspiration. More   Streetwise Maps There was a break-in to the Streetwise offices this month. More

STREETWISE MAPS LTD  PO BOX 3531  WOKINGHAM  RG40 9EJ  www.streetwise-maps.com Copyright © 2009 Streetwise Maps Ltd. All rights reserved. Streetwise does not accept responsibility for the accuracy or completeness of the contents of this newsletter as it has been transmitted over a public network. If you receive this email in error please accept our apology. If this is the case we would be obliged if you would contact the sender and then delete this email.