Greenwich Peninsula’s skyline reached new heights last week, as Knight Dragon and Wates Construction celebrated the ‘topping out’ of a 32-storey apartment scheme at one of Europe’s largest regeneration projects.
Valued in excess of £70m, the Waterman building is one of the first to be constructed at Greenwich Peninsula. It forms part of Knight Dragon’s masterplan to create more than 15,000 new homes in this distinctive loop of the Thames as part of its £8.4bn investment to create a new ‘urban village’.
The topping out ceremony, which took place at the end of April, commemorated the progress that has been made on the Waterman building at plot 104, where Wates has been on-site since May 2015.
Development Director at Knight Dragon, Iain Macgregor, and Leader of the Labour Group at Greater London Authority, Len Duvall, attended the event at Greenwich Peninsula. They were joined by Chairman of the Wates Group, James Wates, and Chief Executive of the Wates Group, Andrew Davies.
Designed by architects Pillbrow & Partners, the Waterman will be home to 269 residential units, 160 of which will comprise affordable and shared ownership apartments, contributing to a total of almost 4,000 affordable homes being delivered by Knight Dragon as part of their vision for the Peninsula.
Wates’ work to develop new homes at the site also includes the Cable and Roper buildings at plot 114 and the Moore building at plot 115, comprising 201 and 144 apartments respectively. The contractor also completed the RIBA award-winning Greenwich Peninsula marketing pavilion in 2014.
Richard Margree, CEO of Knight Dragon, said: “More than one thousand people already live on the Peninsula and when complete, 28,000 people will call it home. We have 1,000 people already working on site to build this vision. This is a once in a generation opportunity to create a whole new part of the capital and we have chosen the best partners to deliver our vision.”
The project has seen Wates appoint 350 operatives to the scheme, 15 per cent of which have been employed locally.
* The Future Housing Needs of London, London School of Economics
