The sky over the City of London, already preparing to be scraped by several new commercial property developments, looks set for another gentle prod, courtesy of the multiple-monikered Pinnacle, aka the Bishopsgate Tower aka the Helter-Skelter. According to reports, work on the 64-storey building will shortly resume after its asset management company Arab Investments instructed global property group Brookfield to start work on the next phase of commercial property development. At 945 sq ft, the Pinnacle will be the tallest of the City of London’s skyscrapers and the second tallest building in Europe outside of Moscow. The summit of this commercial property will feature distinctive twists of metal, apparently based on armadillos, mushrooms and seashells. Whether these will be on the menus of the restaurants planned for the building is unclear, but what is apparently confirmed is the creation of the highest viewing deck available to the public in the UK.
Another area in which this commercial property will lead the way in the UK is its solar panels; 21,500 sq ft of photovoltaic solar cells will be installed, generating up to 200 KW of energy to help power the expected 947,200 sq ft of office space. Finance is reputedly coming from a mixture of bank-backed debt and owner investment. Costs will be reduced by making every panel on the tower the same size and adopting similar technology to that of the Gherkin, allowing for greater climate control and lower energy consumption than normal.
The predicted shortage of prime commercial property space in London is believed to have influenced the developer’s decision to give the go-ahead, with office development remaining below the long-term average of 17.4m sq ft per year, according to figures released by property advisors CB Richard Ellis.
No specific occupiers have yet been confirmed, although rumours suggest that asset management company Schroders has been seen casting admiring glances at the Pinnacle’s shapely form.
The final phase of development is scheduled to begin by the end of June 2011 and should be completed sometime in 2014.
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