A £3.5 billion plan to create a London version of Manhattan’s vibrant Meatpacking District in a derelict stretch of Docklands is unveiled today.
Developers want to transform a long-abandoned 62-acre site at Silvertown Quays into a new east London neighbourhood with up to 3,000 homes, a piazza the size of Covent Garden, more than a mile of waterfront, and a collection of “brand flagship” pavilions for some of the world’s biggest companies.
The masterplan, which has been three years in preparation, was submitted to Newham council last night and will make Silvertown Quays one of London’s biggest regeneration projects, after Battersea Power station and Earls Court.
It will centre on the vast Art Deco Millennium Mills, the last surviving disused flour mill on the Thames, which has been used as a set for the TV series Ashes to Ashes and the Derek Jarman film The Last of England. Barry Jessup, a director of London housing developers First Base, said the mill would be turned into commercial space that could be used by “people who can’t afford to be in Clerkenwell or King’s Cross any more because it is too expensive.”
The plans devote three million sq ft to corporate “mini-theme parks” showcasing some of the world’s best-known brands. Existing examples include World of Coca-Cola in Atlanta, Johnnie Walker House in Shanghai and Mercedes-Benz World in Surrey.
The plans forecast that the rejuvenated Silvertown — named after Victorian rubber tycoon Samuel Winkworth Silver — will attract 13 million visitors a year and help transform one of London’s biggest unused former industrial sites. Mr Jessup compared it to New York’s Meatpacking District on the banks of the Hudson River, which was revived from catastrophic decline in the Nineties and is now described as the city’s “most fashionable neighbourhood.”
The proposals include a new bridge across the Royal Victoria Dock to connect Silvertown Quays with the new Crossrail station at Custom House.
Sir Stuart Lipton of The Silvertown Partnership — a consortium of First Base, developer Chelsfield Properties and investor Macquarie Capital — said: “Our vision will create a new piece of our city.”
