Unilever's 300,000-square-foot London campus reached practical completion last year and has duly been picked as the CoStar Impact Awards commercial development of the year in the capital by a panel of independent judges.
The consumer goods giant's Eden Campus project in Kingston-upon-Thames was developed by Cube RE and funded by LCN Partners to house a major campus.
The redevelopment of the island site to the south of Kingston Town Centre has challenged the rule book for planning and development, changing the commercial property landscape of Kingston to bring workers and visitors to the area, while opening up an underused site to regenerate the Hogsmill River area.
Having previously been rejected for residential development, Cube reviewed plans for the island site, which included an office partly occupied by Unilever. Having approached Unilever to understand its long-term objectives, plans were hatched for a new headquarters in the town centre.
Cube subsequently worked with Unilever, the local council, LCN and other stakeholders. In 2019 plans were lodged for the headquarters at circa 33,000 square metres over two buildings, a car park with 360 car parking spaces, EV charging infrastructure available for public use on weekends and bank holidays,115 homes with 35% affordable, and ground uses including retail.
The development, which received planning permission in March 2021, has been designed to integrate the site into Kingston and respect the heritage assets. The first part of the site to be delivered is Unilever’s headquarters, which is now complete.
About the project: Sustainability is top of the agenda with the highest credentials targeted. Future-proofing has also been incorporated, including the development of the car park to enable repurposing for other uses as parking needs change.
The development includes heat recovery systems, solar control glazing and external shading, the roofs of the office buildings and car park are green with a rooftop garden overlooking the River Thames towards Hampton Court Palace, and it is a fully electric development, with no gas boilers or fossil fuel requirements. Once operational, there is an ambition to achieve net-zero carbon emissions for the site.
The personal care company – created in 1929 by the merger of Britain's Lever Brothers and Margarine Unie of the Netherlands – had been expected to consolidate its offices in London, including the famous Unilever Building at 100 Victoria Embankment, into the address but it is retaining a significant presence in the Unilever Building.
CoStar News revealed in 2022 that that New York investor LCN had completed a £250 million funding deal for Cube Real Estate to develop the office, which Unilever had agreed to prelet in its entirety.
Richard Sharp, head of Unilever UK, said: “This Campus will have global significance for Unilever, being home to around 2,000 employees but, more than that, it will be an iconic site for Kingston and for London."
What the judges said: Guy Bowring, director at Tuckerman Commercial, said: “This brings significant local regeneration improvements to a run-down part of Central London, and involved liaising with multiple stakeholders over a lengthy period of time. Longstanding relationships were encouraged between anchor tenant and local community including working with colleges and employment for local area. It is a springboard for future development to further regenerate local area and a stand out development.”
Shaun Dawson, head of insights at Devono, said: “I chose the Unilever Campus in Kingston because it represents regeneration in its truest sense, not simply redevelopment of a site but reintegration of a place back into the town around it. This site could have easily continued to decline, yet the project has re-established it as an active gateway into Kingston. Just as importantly, it retained a major global occupier within the borough. Securing Unilever’s offices here rather than losing them to another market protects a significant employment base and underpins wider economic confidence.
"What stood out was the collaborative approach behind the scheme. The developer, occupier, council and local institutions aligned their objectives, so the project delivers social value alongside commercial value. Public access to the riverside, weekend EV parking provision, new homes and public realm improvements ensure the development serves residents as well as workers. The links to Kingston University and Kingston College demonstrate that this is intended to function as part of the town, not as a closed corporate campus. For me, it shows how corporate real estate can anchor community outcomes rather than displace them.”
Phillip Bennison, managing director at Intense Capital, said: “The Unilever Campus required painstaking coordination between a wide variety of stakeholders to create this truly inspiring gateway development and catalyst for employment and regenerative investment to Kingston for many years to come.”
Frankie Warner Lacey, partner at RX London, said: “It has to be the Unilever campus at Kingston because it transformed a redundant site into a world-class HQ bringing new jobs to Kingston and delivering substantial economic regeneration benefits to a previously untested office location.”
James Finnis, Head of UK Agency at JLL, said: “The delivery of the Unilever campus in Kingston stands out for a number of factors: it has transformed an unloved site that needed intervention into a sustainable HQ for a global corporate. Cube overcame the challenges of a constrained development appraisal and delivered a prize-winning facility.”
They Made It Happen:
Hathaway Opportunity Fund, developer – Richard Topps, group head of property; Cube RE, development manager – Jonathan Lawes, development and asset management director; Unilever, tenant – Robert Tuinenburg, project director; LCN, funder – Ward Stocker, partner; Darling Associate Architects, architects – Chris Darling, founder; Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames, planning authority – Barry Lomax, lead planning officer; Chartplan, planning consultant – Barry Kitcherside, managing director; Francis Hunter, project manager – David Lunt, director, and Luke Nurser, Associate Director; JLL, letting and sales agent – Stuart Austin, Head of SE Offices, and Andrew Laing, Senior Director; Cushman & Wakefield, adviser to Unilever - Charles Dady, head of South East office agency team.
