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A huge convention centre able to hold more than 3000 delegates is to be built next to the O2 Arena by the Anschutz Entertainment Group (AEG), the US operators of the highly successful entertainment complex.
The plans are being finalised and will be revealed byAEG in February, when they are submitted to Greenwich council for approval.
A source who has seen the drawings prepared by architects Lifschutz Davidson Sandiliands says the 300,000 sq ft centre will be built on the riverbank to the east of the O2, adjacent to an 18-storey hotel containing 450 rooms.
"It is huge, with the biggest clear-span space you have ever seen," he said. "It will become the best spot in London to hold a conference, exhibition, awards ceremony, or global convention."
Last month O2 chief executive David Campbell fleetingly mentioned that AEG were to build the hotel and conference centre. But the sheer scale of the development by the world's largest leisure operator has never been revealed until now.
"These plans will call into question the wisdom of plans to expand Excel in the Royal Docks to include a convention centre" said an expert. "And it will sure beat going to the Grosvenor House over and over again."
The news will also boost the fortunes of Lend Lease and Quintain. They are the developers who signed a 25-year deal with government in May 2002 under the name Meridian Delta, to build 7000 new homes and 3.4 million sq ft of office space on the 190 acres of state-owned land at the top of the Greenwich peninsula.
It will also be good news for the Government. Former Dome Minister Lord Falconer included clauses in the deal that should reap the taxpayer a £550 million windfall. Meridian Delta agreed to give the Treasury £20 for each square foot developed - plus a profit share.
A visit to the site on Tuesday confirmed momentum is building after a slow start, lengthened by the credit crunch. More than 1900 Transport for London staff are now working in offices built by Meridian Delta, which has just let space in an adjoining block to Greenwich council at a price "a bit higher" than the £29.50 per sq ft being paid by TfL, says Nick Shattock, deputy chief executive of Quintain.
"We should have built another 400,000 sq ft of office space by 2012," says Shattock. "By then around 1000 of the 10,000 homes will be built."
He says 92 of 229 flats being built by Bellway have sold off plan to overseas buyers at around £500 per sq ft.
Plans to build up to 30-stories high facing Canary Wharf and sell at no more than £650 per sq ft have also been drawn up.
Those paying attention will notice the 7000 homes envisaged in 2004 have mysteriously swollen to 10,000 today. What may help explain the swelling is that in 2002 prices of not much more than £350 per sq ft were envisaged.
Easy money is hard to come by
Bankers are now lending developers a percentage of the cost of a project rather than a percentage of its end value, which tends to be 20% higher.
News of these tougher borrowing criteria will emerge in a report next week by EC Harris. Loan-to-value ratios have already plunged from the 80%/90% region at the peak of the boom to around 50%/60% today. In 2007 a developer could easily borrow £800,000 for a project with an estimated end value of £1 million.
Today they will be lucky to be advanced 50% of the £800,000 cost: in other words half the loan available in times of plenty. The 3400-strong built asset consultants discovered the shift from the traditional loan-to-value ratios to loan-to-cost ratios when it polled 79 senior debt staff at 13 leading lenders.
The firm now advising the Qatari government on the Shard Tower at London Bridge and the contentious Chelsea Barracks site says there is one more snag: those keen to build offices need to pre-let 80% of the space before even going to see the bank manager.
How Crown Estate is restoring glory to the Regent Palace site
On Wednesday, 26 May 1915, the 1028-room Regent Palace Hotel opened just north-west of Piccadilly Circus. A single room cost six shillings and sixpence.
That is about what the student backpackers should have been paying in 2004 because the place had deteriorated into a fleapit.
Happily, there is now a gigantic hole where the hotel stood, thanks to the Crown Estate, custodians of the Queen's £6 billion property portfolio, which returns substantial profits to the taxpayer every year.
The Estate owns most of Regent Street and has transformed it over the past 10 years. Now it has directed project managers Stanhope and builders Sir Robert McAlpine to fill the hole left by demolishing the Regent Palace with seven floors of offices, built over street-level shops.
Under the shops will be two recreated remnants of the old hotel; the Atlantic Bar & Grill and the Titanic restaurant.
English Heritage scuppered total demolition by listing the place in 2004.
It was then agreed to keep the glazed-tile walls on each corner and what's billed as "the UK's largest Art Deco spaces".
The 20,000 square foot bar and 300-cover restaurant will have a grand opening in the spring of 2012.
On Tuesday morning more than 200 of McAlpine's best were bustling around what is one of four schemes planned by the Crown Estate in a £500 million plan to transform this seedy quadrant into one million square foot of new space.
But the old hotel won't be forgotten. On Wednesday 20 January 2010 a commemorative time capsule will be bolted to one of the remaining walls by the pupils of Soho Parish School.
Posh stars pull in landlords to help out London's homeless
Even wicked landlords unbend at Christmas. Last night 300 property folk gathered in St George's Church, Hanover Square, for the 32nd Story of Christmas carol service, which has raised over £4million for charity since the event was started by its indefatigable organiser Robert Spooner in 1978.
And a pretty posh affair it is. Men are encouraged to wear black tie, women sparkly frocks. All are rewarded with sparkling champagne afterwards at Christie's auction house.
This comes after a singalong with the choir of Westminster Cathedral, in a service conducted by the Bishop of London.
But the real reason congregants gave it up for the Crash and Centrepoint charities is that Spooner always attracts posh stars to read the lessons.
Dame Judi Dench is a regular reader. But last night mature male hearts were softened by Joanna Lumley and June Whitfield.
Women of a certain age were given Dame Judi's TV partner, Geoffrey Palmer.
