Insurer eyeing up new departure for Cannon Street

By 2013, a new one million-square foot headquarters building emblazoned with the Bloomberg logo will fill the view.

Actually, that last part is a daydream: simply wishful thinking based upon no more than a conversation in late April with a friend of New York's mayor Michael Bloomberg.

The source said the founder of the global news organisation merely expressed a desire to have a stand-out European headquarters in the City of London.

There is a tiny bit more substance. Bloomberg has spent ages surveying new accommodation for its London-based journalists, who at present toil on the rim of the City in Finsbury Square.

There were once serious discussions about moving into a brand-new building put up by Minerva next door to the Wallbrook site.

Legal & General owns those 3.7 acres. The insurer today announced that it is to spend £20 million tearing down the tall Sixties blocks and putting in a box to allow for an eventual pedestrian connection to the Waterloo and City line.

But that's it, for now. Why not go further and put up some offices?

"We are starting work on Wallbrook because of the encouragement we are receiving from the lettings and investment market," says Helen Gordon, a director of Legal & General Property.

That can be roughly interpreted as meaning L&G is confident of getting a tenant and even more confident of finding a joint venture partner to share the enormous building costs.

But is L&G talking to Bloomberg? "I obviously can't comment," says Gordon, a woman of charm and, sadly, discretion. "They are one of a number of tenants we are talking to. But of course we would love to have them."

What L&G has at Wallbrook is an existing planning consent for a 900,000-square-foot scheme and £140 million in its pocket.

The plan is the so-called Darth Vader design dreamed up in 2006 by French architect Jean Nouvel. The £140 million came courtesy of Spanish developer Metrovacesa, which agreed to pay £250 million for the site in September 2007: then, as the world ground to a halt, thought "oh my God, what have we done?"

HP payments were first agreed. Then the Spaniards thought to hell with this. In August 2009, Metrovacesa forfeited a £40 million deposit and handed L&G a £100 million walk-away fee.

Will Darth Vader survive? "We are looking at everything from building out the existing scheme to a complete re-design," says Gordon.

In other words, if Bloomberg wants a purpose-built office, L&G will oblige. If they don't, commuters can always daydream of walking across a wonderful new City square.

Rooftop reward for Westfield hotshots

Let the brand positioning begin: on Monday, 160 guests of Australian retail developer Westfield will sit down to dinner inside what looks like a moon module perched on the roof of the 1.9 million sq ft Stratford shopping centre, which is due to open in late 2011.

Artist Tracey Emin is coming along. So are model Erin O'Connor and TV shopping queen Mary Portas.
Their job is to present awards to four young East End hotshots who will be offered a small shop window for their wares in the £1.45 billion centre, which is now 60% let.

Diners will also marvel at the talent of in-vogue architects Kevin Carmody and Andy Groarke, who drew up plans for the 70-ton structure, made from scaffolding, timber and plastic sheeting nicked from the building site below.

If you fancy dinner 35 metres up in the air with a nice view of the Olympic stadium, do hurry. Leading chef Tom Collins of East End restaurant Bistrotheque will be opening a temporary dining room on Wednesday — for just three weeks.