Canary Wharf
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HSBC Building (left), 1 Canada Square building (centre), Citigroup building (right) |
1 Canada Square (Canary Wharf tower) |
Canary Wharf complex |
Canary Wharf underground station (Jubilee Line) |
Canary Wharf in Tower Hamlets, London, United Kingdom, is a large business development on the Isle of Dogs centred on the old West India Docks.
Rivalling London's traditional financial centre, The Square Mile, Canary Wharf contains the UK's three tallest buildings, 1 Canada Square, commonly known as the Canary Wharf Tower; HSBC Tower; and Citigroup Centre.
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History
Canary Wharf was originally the site of cargo warehouses that served the docks in the Docklands area. It takes its name from seatrade with the Canary Islands, whose name comes from the dogs (Latin canis) which the Spaniards found there, producing the linguistic coincidence of trade between the Dog Islands and the Isle of Dogs. However, in the 1960s, the port industry began to decline.
The project to revitalise the eight square miles of derelict London docks began in 1981 with the establishment of the London Docklands Development Corporation by the government of Margaret Thatcher. Initially redevelopment was focussed on smallscale, light industrial schemes and Canary Wharf's largest occupier was Limehouse Studios, a TV production company.
Bankers take note
In 1984 Michael von Clem, head of the investment bank Credit Suisse First Boston was visiting the area looking for a site for a client's food processing plant (by legend it was for the Roux Brothers). He was also acutely aware that the bank's city offices were increasingly overcrowded and hopelessly ill-equipped to deal with modern trading systems - especially with the impending, 1986 deregulation of the finance markets. He noticed that there was a lot of potentially developable land.
He contacted his opposite number at Morgan Stanley who said that a large scheme with critical mass would be necessary. It was also agreed that a new Tube line would be required to make the scheme viable. Plans were announced, but the project very nearly came to nothing as both banks had a change of heart. The scheme seemed dead when London Underground deleted the new Canary Wharf station from the map of the planned Docklands Light Railway.
However, Canadian developer Olympia and York bought the project and literally put it back on the map. Contruction began in 1988, with phase one completed in 1992. Critically, Olympia and York agreed to meet half the cost of the extension to the Jubilee Line.
Property market collapse
Disaster struck when the world property market collapsed in the early 1990s. Tenant demand evaporated and - even worse - the Jubilee Line work had not started by the time Olympia & York collapsed and the scheme went into administration. For a while, it seemed, Canary Wharf would be a white elephant, accessible only by the woefully under-specified Docklands Light Railway.
The situation was not helped when the administrators turned off the lights on all unoccupied floors, creating the spectre of a visibly half empty 1 Canada Square on London's skyline.
Indeed, Canary Wharf's image was so tarnished that when investment bank Merrill Lynch announced plans to relocate there from the City, guards had to be put on a model of Canary Wharf - erected in the bank's lobby - to prevent vandalism. The move was cancelled soon after.
1 Canada Square stood with its top half in darkness, bleakly symbolic of the disaster that had befallen not only Canary Wharf, but also the entire UK commercial property market.
Rescue and recovery
In December 1995 an international consortium, backed by the former owners of Olympia & York and other investors, bought the scheme. At this time its working population was around 13,000 and well over half the office space was empty.
Probably the critical event in the recovery of Canary Wharf was the much-delayed start of work on the Jubilee Line, which the government wanted ready for the Millennium celebrations. From this point on tenants and workers began to see Canary Wharf as a viable alternative to traditional office locations. Not only were the remaining phases completed, but new phases were planned and implemented. Its working population in 2004 is 63,000. Canary Wharf Group, the schemes owner became - briefly - the UK's largest property company.
The present day
Canary Wharf tenants include major banks, such as HSBC, Citigroup and Barclays, as well as major newspaper firms, including The Independent, Reuters, and the Daily Mirror. Increasingly Canary Wharf is also becoming a shopping destination, particularly with the opening of the Jubilee Place shopping mall in 2003.
Canary Wharf is connected to central London via the Canary Wharf DLR station, opened in 1991, and the extension of the Jubilee Line to Canary Wharf tube station in 2000. Heron Quays DLR station is also nearby. London City Airport is only several miles further to the east and can be most easily accessed by regular bus connections or by taxi.
In January 1996, the IRA planted the largest bomb seen until that time on the mainland, with almost three tons of explosives. It was safely defused. Later that year, they succesfully detonated a slightly smaller bomb near South Quay DLR station, killing two people and destroying the South Quay Plaza development and several nearby buildings.
The significance of Canary Wharf
Canary Wharf is not just any old office scheme. It has had impact at the local level, at the metropolitan level and, to a lesser extent, at the national level.
The most immediate impact of Canary Wharf was to massively raise land values in the surrounding area. This meant that the Isle of Dogs, which had previously been seen as suited only for low density light industrial development, was suddenly uprated. Projects like South Quay Plaza and East India Dock were a direct consequence of this, although, arguably, informed more by hope than experience.
At the metropolitan level, Canary Wharf was - and remains - a direct challenge to the primacy of the City of London as the UK's principal centre for the finance industry. Relations between Canary Wharf and the Corporation of London have frequently been strained, with the City accusing Canary Wharf of poaching tenants, and Canary Wharf accusing the City of not catering to occupier needs.
Canary Wharf's national significance comes from what it replaces: The former docks were, as recently as 1961, the busiest in the world. They served huge industrial areas of east London and beyond. Both the docks and much of that industrial capacity are gone, with employment shifting to the kind of service industry accommodated in office buildings.
In this respect, Canary Wharf could be cited as the strongest single symbol of the changed economic geography of the United Kingdom.
See also
External links
de:Canary Wharf
