Resolution Property and Chinese investor Fosun are set to gain consent to repurpose around 180,000 square feet of offices as educational use at the Moretown office campus, the former headquarters of Rupert Murdoch's News International in Wapping in London.
Ahead of a Tower Hamlets council strategic development committee meeting on 3 September, planning officers are recommending approval for Resolution's plans for the change of use of 17,698 square metres of gross internal floorspace from offices to education use, or 25% of the existing total office floorspace on site.
The proposal also involves a temporary change of use of four shop units which make up Building 7 on site, totalling 3,982 square feet to serve as a new community centre.
Savills is planning adviser and Gensler is architect on the project.
In documents supporting the application, while planning officers confirm the loss of office is contrary to Local Plan Policy because the site is in a secondary preferred office location, the site is also within the central activities zone, where education uses are a strategic function. Officers write that marketing evidence shows an inability to rent out the offices in this "post Covid-19 pandemic market".
Resolution and Fosun are looking to tap into a rich area of office demand. Education establishments and, in particular, university occupiers have been major acquirers of offices in the capital and the rest of the country in recent times. In July, Gaw Capital confirmed that two education providers – Elizabeth School London and SP Jain School of Management – had jointly taken an extra 124,745 square feet of offices at Harbour Exchange’s HX1 and 2 in the Docklands in Tower Hamlets, bringing the site to 99% occupancy.
In May, CoStar News revealed that Lendlease had signed Arden University for 94,000 square feet at its Turing Building at Stratford Cross on the former 2012 Olympic Park in east London, with an option to take another 90,000 square foot.
Arden already has campuses in Tower Bridge, Holborn and Ealing, which it will retain. It offers a combination of distance and blended-learning degree courses to students globally and received degree awarding powers from the UK government in 2015. It now has more than 27,000 students online and at campuses in the UK and Germany.
Lendlease launched the Turing Building, a 350,000-square-foot office, to market last year. The building is unusual in that it had secured dual planning consent for around 200,000 square feet to become education use. The building is next to the London College of Fashion, University of the Arts London and University College London East, which opened campuses in autumn 2023.
Fosun bought the Moretown campus in 2016 alongside Resolution Property, the European property fund manager in which it holds a 60% stake. The building was bought from Landsec for £298 million.
Resolution and Fosun have leased the campus with a focus on creative and tech industries and rebranded it from Thomas More Square.
In July it secured a nine-year lease with global architecture and design firm Gensler to occupy the entire Building 6. That deal saw Gensler, which designed the refurbished building, take the 7,681-square-foot fourth floor, adding to its 32,870 square feet across the lower levels.
The letting took Moretown’s overall occupancy to 82.9%. The campus is home to occupiers including Uber, Hitachi, UHY, ICIC Bank and Ipsos, which recently renewed its lease in Building 3 until 2030. Uber signed a five-year lease in 2022 for an 8,500-square-foot ground floor unit in the 87,162-square-foot Building 2.
It was once the printing press home of News UK, the Rupert Murdoch-owned UK media operation that owns The Times and The Sun newspapers. In the mid-1980s Murdoch relocated there from Fleet Street, the traditional home of British newspapers, in a major battle with unions. News International moved out of Fleet Street in 1986 to Wapping and sold the print works site to Berkeley Group for £150 million in 2012. The company moved into 430,000 square feet on a 30-year lease at Sellar Property and The State of Qatar’s News International Building at 25 London Bridge, SE1 in 2013.
Resolution Property is advised by Newmark and Allsop on the office leasing.