Creating waves at Canada Water
With one million square feet of retail, food & beverage (F&B), and leisure space to be filled with various tenants the development at Canada Water in London’s Southwark is on a scale not seen before in London so it’s just as well that it is being overseen by someone with impressive experience with such projects.
Roger Madelin, joint-head of Canada Water at British Land, was previously leader of Argent and responsible for the 58.5 acres area between the St Pancras and King’s Cross stations when it was largely an area of wasteland. The mix-use scheme involved residential and office space along with a very modest 0.5 million square feet allocated for retail and F&B tenants.
Battle to include retail
The site has gone on to become a massively successful destination within the capital but Madelin can recall at the planning stages there being a battle to include a decent amount of retail and F&B into the mix. More than 0.5 million square feet and the council would have deemed it a shopping cluster and initiated the creation of a barrage of paperwork from compiling impact studies on the local area.
Subscribe to TRB“I thought it was ludicrous and bureaucratic,” he says, but this was not the only issue Madelin faced because retail is not an asset class for bringing in big levels of income so it invariably took a back seat in large developments. However, he recognised it can positively affect the values of the apartments and office space in an area.
The limited space allocated to retail and F&B ultimately led to a shift away from the traditional mix of names, with more independents, and smaller units playing a pivotal role. This was also the period when the emergence of online shopping was beginning to reshape the physical retail landscape.
“We had conversations with John Lewis about a store of the future and also conversations with Google and John Lewis about them collaborating on experiential and theatre rather than just having sales space. Tech was influencing the retail offer at this time. But it fell by the wayside with Google – whose office [in King’s Cross] is currently 11 years late,” he says.
Building a retail destination
Madelin faced another challenge as the retailers and F&B operators were largely reluctant to come into the new development. Mary Portas wanted an office and a shop but said King’s Cross/St Pancras was not a retail destination. “She was wrong,” he says, but adds that her view was widely held at the time. Caravan and Dishoom were both uncertain about committing but now have units with queues outside their doors every day. As many as 15,000 people an hour cross the footbridge over the Regents canal from the train stations to visit Granary Square and Coal Drops Yard.
Coal Drops Yard came on-stream after Granary Square and represented a unique batch of properties across the former coal yards that fed fuel into the army of steam trains coming in and out of the two mainline stations. The plan drawn up by Madelin was for: 20% of the units to be given over to independent-minded recognised retailers; 20% to retailers with some experience element included in the space such as F&B; 20% to decent F&B operators; and 20% to retailers already operating one or two units.
Ahead of the plan for Coal Drops Yard being completed Madelin had left Argent [in 2016] and he points out that some of the problems this part of the development has faced since it opened has been due to the fact the tenants predominantly comprised little known brands with one of two stores. And there was a dearth of F&B.
The development’s owners have sought to address this with more mainstream names being gradually introduced such as Uniqlo that now has a sizeable unit in a prominent location on the site and also an influx of food and drink brands – many operated by the Hart Brothers such as Barrafina.
Bringing learnings to Canada Water
Madelin is looking to use his learnings from St Pancras and King’s Cross – as well as his experience on Brindleyplace in Birmingham and Piccadilly in Manchester – on the vast site at Canada Water that covers 53 acres and will ultimately include two million square feet of offices, 3,000 residential units, and one million square feet of retail, F&B and leisure. Within this will be 16 new streets including the first new high street in London for 100 years.
In the middle of the development is the established Surrey Quays shopping centre that will ultimately be made over and incorporated into the Canada Water masterplan. When Madelin first visited the centre ahead of the project he found positive signs: “There were no vacant units and it was very busy. British Land data showed it had 7.2 million customer visits per year and although it was a bit tired it was not too bad.”
He also found these visitors were derived from an enormous catchment area – from the wealthy denizens of Blackheath and Dulwich to the less affluent residents of Peckham and Lewisham. “With that catchment across South East London we found it could justify double or treble the retail floorspace of the existing Surrey Quays centre,” he suggests.
Since planning approval for the Canada Water masterplan a batch of retailers have left the centre including BHS, Dorothy Perkins, Poundland and The Body Shop, which reflects the wider retail market than this particular site. It does mean that no retailers will fill these spaces as they prefer to hold back to await units in the new developments across the Canada Water site. “The big retailers are saying Canada Water is either the top of their list for a new store location or near the top,” reveals Madelin.
Vibrant town centre
Unlike at King’s Cross/St Pancras he has not fought to include retail and F&B but has in fact been mandated by Southwark Council that there has to be a minimum of 0.5 million square feet for these categories. “Surrey Quays has been a major town centre and they want it to remain so. They believe residents need and desire F&B and retail,” he says. The plan is to assign at least 20% of the million square feet to F&B and 20% to leisure, with the remainder for retail tenants.
When the policy for the site was written around 15 years ago it included a diverse array of target retail names and a fair amount of comparison shopping so the likes of Primark, M&S and H&M could all potentially be present to offer a varied clothing mix. “Over time some of the [potential] retail names have gone and the idea of the size of shops has changed. We now want more adaptable spaces for easier fit-outs and for more frequent changes of interiors,” says Madelin.
The first new tenants to announce their place in the development are F&B operators and will sit within the Three Deal Porters and Dock Shed buildings. They include Sushi Revolution and The Village Tree who are both independents and have connections to the local area. And in-line with Madelin’s appetite for interesting tenants Vagabond will be opening a unique unit. The UK’s largest urban winery will cover 6,000 square feet of space in the Dock Shed incorporating a working 100-tonne winery – with capacity for 100,000 bottles per year – and bar including the brand’s signature bank of self-pour wine machines.
Influx of operators
These names will be joining Corner Corner that is located in the space formerly housing the Range store and which now includes a Kerb food market along with a vertical farming operation from Harvest London and space for on ongoing events programme. Other leisure elements coming on-stream imminently include a leisure centre that is forecast to attract 700,000 visitors per year.
More deals are due to complete shortly, according to Madelin, and some of the new office space will fill-up in early-2026, thereby boosting footfall in the area. At this early stage of the development he says it is essential to do rental deals based on turnover. “We’d like to do more of them as it aligns developer and operator but retailers often don’t like them. They’d say they have to reveal competitive information and you also have to work out how to deal with their click & collect business.”
Needless to say these challenges are unlikely to ruffle Madelin who has likely seen it all before and with his previous experience knows the outcome will likely be favourable. Canada Water will prove to be an exciting destination within London just as St Pancras and King’s Cross proved to be.
