Brent Cross Town

Sector and market opportunity

The development will focus on growth sectors such as housing, build to rent (BTR) and market sale homes, as well as connected, low-carbon and highly flexible Grade A offices.

Its planned size is 1 million square metres (10 million square feet) over a 12 to 15 year development programme.

2020 was a record year for BTR with £6.6 billion of investment, and rather significant demand for properties. Similarly for offices, the majority of buildings under construction in central London are pre-let and future demand will be for space that responds to the issues raised by the pandemic and climate change.

The project promoter is seeking a strategic investment partner.

The initial phase of the Brent Cross transformation will comprise of rental units (build to rent), market sale homes, office and retail. Delivery of the first buildings are expected in late 2024, with a total build cost of around £460 million. This accounts for around 10% of the overall opportunity at Brent Cross Town.

Investment Phase 3 comprises a landmark office building extending to 240,000 square feet of sustainable office space, with a pre-let to an educational anchor, Sheffield Hallam University, offering access to world-class teaching, research and talent.

Location

Barnet is one of the fastest growing boroughs in London with 400,000 residents. Some 3,000 new homes are needed annually. Almost 60% of the population sit within the most affluent demographic profile groups ABC1.

Within a 30-minute drive, there are 3.2 million people, with an average combined annual household income of £75,000 and spending power of £25 billion. There are 27,000 workers within a 10-minute walk with a combined spending power of £21 million.

Brent Cross West station and the underground provides access to 337,000 commuters with spending potential of £750 million.

Connectivity

Brent Cross Town will be very well connected. By train, you’ll be able to reach King’s Cross and St Pancras International in 12 minutes, from the new Brent Cross West station.

Brent Cross Town will be located in a hub location for the ‘golden triangle’ comprising of the Oxford - Cambridge Arc, and the Knowledge Quarter and Tech City, both in London.

Travel to 5 international airports is less than an hour and the neighbourhood is very near to both the M1 motorway and Brent Cross tube station.

Local talent and skills

The site sits central to four post-codes: NW2, NW4, NW9 and NW11, all of which support 21,000 businesses. Barnet is a hotbed of local entrepreneurship, with business and start-up levels per capita that are much higher than in other London boroughs.

Brent Cross Town’s employment reach within a 60-minute commute equates to approximately 6 million people, representing roughly 20% of the UK working population. Within a 90-minute commute, the reach extends to 10.8 million people, equating to 38% of the UK working population.

Research and expertise

The promoter is working with Manchester University and Buro Happold to establish a Flourishing Index. This will be used to bring together existing data and bespoke local insight to develop a tangible, quantifiable method of understanding the impact the regeneration is having on local communities and the surrounding area. Insight from the Flourishing Index will be used to shape the future design and inform the development over the long term.

Further details

Sport, play, health and wellbeing

Brent Cross Town is committed to being a key London location for sport and play, delivering both indoor and outdoor leisure facilities. The ambition is to create an inclusive environment that prioritises female participation and champions diversity. A wide range of facilities will enable participation at all ages and for all abilities, offering better physical and mental health outcomes.

In delivering these aspirations, strategic partnerships have been formed with bodies such as The Football Association, England Netball and British Cycling to drive programming and establish footfall. The facilities will include all weather fields for football, hockey, netball and tennis as well as an opportunity for discovery of sports like parkour, bouldering, E-Sports and teqball. Dedicated spaces for children include a children’s cycle track and multiple playground areas.

Environmental, social and governance (ESG) highlights

Brent Cross Town has committed to be a net zero carbon town by 2030 at the latest. This will be achieved by driving down embodied carbon in construction, significantly reducing carbon in operation and application of circular economy principles.

The new primary substation, is a critical piece of infrastructure as it will supply electricity to all of Brent Cross Town, including 6,600 homes, 3 million sq. ft. of offices and new retail and leisure spaces, as well as the low-carbon district heating / cooling network operated by Swedish energy company Vattenfall.

In addition to the Flourishing Index, the development will include a series of other progressive health and wellbeing strategies including a sound and music strategy, an area wide walking and cycling strategy, parks and playing fields and sporting facilities and a biodiversity plan.

Promoters and partnerships

In 2016, Barnet Council and Related Argent formed Brent Cross South Limited Partnership to be the master developer at Brent Cross Town. The master developer’s main responsibilities include master planning, land assembly and delivery of infrastructure and public realm. Under the agreement with the master developer, Related Argent is the developer of Brent Cross Town.

Related Argent brings together a blend of complementary real estate skills, access to global capital and a long history of technical and delivery experience.

As a UK developer, Argent has a track record of creating exemplar new pieces of city including King’s Cross. In 2015, it joined forces with Related, a highly prominent privately-owned real estate firm in the United States with over $60 billion in assets owned or under development, including Hudson Yards on Manhattan’s West Side, and Related Santa Clara in California.

Related Argent has an £8 billion development pipeline in London including Brent Cross Town, Tottenham Hale and a build to rent scheme in King’s Cross and is actively seeking new opportunities. It brings together the collective experience of over 80 years of high-quality city building which includes 81,000 rental units and approximately 30 million net square feet of investments across the US and UK.

Local and national government support

Brent Cross Town secured a £148 million Homes England loan to fund the land and infrastructure works needed to unlock the delivery of the 6,700 homes and other vertical developments.

The new Brent Cross West station and associated rail works are being funded as part of a £419 million government funding agreement.

Barnet Council secured this through close collaboration with central government partners from the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, HM Treasury and the Greater London Authority.