Minutes:
Ms Arlene van Bosch, Development Director and Mr Jon Carter, Senior Project Director, U+I Group PLC gave a presentation on the St Mark’s Square development.
U+I Group PLC was established following a merger of Cathedral and Development Securities PLC in 2014, and more formally in November 2015 when they moved into their current premises.
The St Mark’s Square Development was Site K of the Bromley Town Centre Area Action Plan, located at the southern end of the High Street. A Development Agreement had been signed in 2010 between the freeholders, London Borough of Bromley, and Cathedral Group who took a lease of 250 years. The former car park on the site was demolished and U+I Group PLC started their development in May 2013. The site had a number of constraints including the nearby railway, insurance company buildings, Westmoreland Road and the culvert of the River Ravensbourne which would need to be diverted. The project had been delayed due to a number of logistical issues on site, but was now moving ahead.
U+I Group PLC had chosen to invest in Bromley as the local core population of 340,000 included 66% of those being ABC1s with high disposable incomes. There was no large multiplex cinema and a limited family restaurant offer in the town centre, which meant residents were likely to drive to places like Bluewater and as a result their expenditure would leave the Borough.
The project included a nine screen multiplex VUE cinema in the basement, restaurants including Las Iguanas, Pizza Express, Nando’s, Prezzo, Dean’s Diner and Turtle Bay, a 130-bed Premier Inn hotel, 200 apartments, 400 car parking spaces and a high quality public plaza for which they had doubled the size requirement of public space across the site. It was noted that the motif design on the exterior of the hotel was a broom flower, from which Bromley had taken its name and highlighted its heritage.
The 200 residential units included 185 units situated above the restaurants and consisted of 1, 2 and 3 bedroom apartments. The affordable housing partner was Moat and they had purchased 62 units. The rest of the units would be sold through local estate agents JDM. Residents had 100 private car parking spaces located in the basement, and the remaining 300 car parking spaces would be for public use. The project was due to be completed by the end of 2017 with the plaza and the country’s first underground cinema opening first, followed by the restaurants and hotel. The residential units were due to be handed over at the end of 2017 / beginning of 2018.
Members of the Partnership enquired about the amount of parking spaces being created on the site. Ms van Bosch responded that they had liaised with the London Borough of Bromley Planning department and the Greater London Authority throughout the process. The Greater London Authority had not wanted U+I Group PLC to provide any parking spaces for the residential development, so 50% of the total number of residential units had been felt a good point to negotiate from. Surveys of traffic flow and public transport had been carried out, and Bromley had received a high score for its public transport accessibility level (PTAL). Members felt that only having 300 public parking spaces for the 1,000 seat cinema would be an issue. Ms van Bosch said that this had been a reoccurring comment in the consultation process. It was also noted that the cinema operator had not required a concession where visitors could receive free parking, although this could change in the future.
The Chairman thanked Ms van Bosch and Mr Carter for their interesting presentation and looked forward to the development opening.