Cormac MacCrann: Above and beyond

Fresh from completing his QS articles, Cormac MacCrann boarded a plane from his native Ireland in 1982 and landed in Iran at the outset of war with its neighbouring Iraq. MacCrann lived in fear that the construction site on the coastal town of Bandar Abbass, where he was working for a Dutch engineering firm, might be bombed. It was being constructed because the port further up the coast had been decimated by Iraqi forces. “Everything was very difficult,” he says with a little understatement. “But it was a good experience and that’s where I found I was getting a taste for construction.”

Thirty years later MacCrann has new - albeit less dangerous - challenges. After stints in the Middle East, briefly running a boat building business in the UK and at QS firm Lehrer McGovern International, MacCrann joined Canary Wharf Contractors in 1994. Now executive director, during his time at the firm he has overseen construction at some of the UK’s tallest buildings, including Citi building, the fourth tallest in the country.

In July the £375m Canary Wharf Group, the parent of the £210m-turnover contractor business, which MacCrann heads, hit the headlines when it inked a deal with Arab investor Qatari Diar to overhaul the Shell Centre, one of central London’s largest redevelopment sites. It is Canary Wharf’s second foray outside of its Docklands home; in January it started work on the 37-storey Walkie Talkie in the City, in a joint venture with developer Land Securities. MacCrann says these schemes will be the first of many outside east London. “One of the reasons that makes me stay here is there’s always a challenge and the latest is exporting the Canary Wharf brand,” MacCrann says. “Certainly London is our oyster, as is the UK and the rest of the world in a lot of ways.”

That’s not to say Canary Wharf is turning its back on its roots. Last month the contractor’s parent company announced it will complete the final part of its 71-acre eighties Docklands masterplan by building a 20-storey tower at 25 Churchill Place. And its east London ambitions do not end here. The group has plans to almost double the size of its Canary Wharf estate, with 11.25 million ft2 of schemes having won full or outline planning consent. This plan includes a mammoth 4.6 million ft2 mixed-use scheme called Wood Wharf that would extend Canary Wharf about half a mile to the east, that the group has a 25% stake in.

If these plans seem ambitious in a market that is stuttering, they make more sense if you consider the expected impact of Crossrail. Mayor Boris Johnson’s London Plan predicts the working population of Canary Wharf will increase from 95,000 to 200,000. And Canary Wharf Contractors - one of the few contractors around with the benefit of a developer behind them and the exclusive opportunity to carry out this work - is in line to pick up the pipeline. MacCrann can boast a prestigious pipeline of jobs, the cash to kickstart projects, and - some welcome news for subcontractors - he has plans to open up his supply chain to new entrants.

A model vision

MacCrann leads the way to the group’s marketing suite at One Canada Water and the first of two “model rooms” designed to wow clients. Spanning the space is a sprawling miniature model of London. To the west, the iconic City skyline is immediately recognisable. To the east is the Canary Wharf estate, represented by a cluster of towers - twice as many as are in the square mile. But this is not the Canary Wharf estate as it is now, it’s what the group would like it to look like once it has pressed “go” on all its proposed schemes.

The model also shows the interconnectedness of what was once a cut-off enclave of east London. MacCrann presses a series of buttons that illuminate the routes of the Docklands Light Railway (DLR), Jubilee Line, high-speed rail and finally Crossrail. Each line winds its way around the model and into the centre of Canary Wharf. “We used to show the Jubilee Line route on this model in the days when it was just a proposal. It was difficult to attract tenants then, but after the Jubilee Line things really started to get going, I believe Crossrail will prove to be a similar boost for development here,” he says.

Canary Wharf Contractors is in the process of constructing the Crossrail station that will connect the financial centre with the City and on to Essex and Berkshire. With the construction of the Olympic park in Stratford up the road (Canary Wharf will be home to the German Olympic team during the Games, as well as hosting entertainment and hospitality events) and the prospect of billions of pounds worth of redevelopment work, east London is fast becoming a boom area for construction firms. “I think there are a lot of opportunities,” MacCrann says. “London needs expansion space and the natural and most economic place is to the east.” In the short term, Canary Wharf is offering large construction packages on the Walkie Talkie tower (structural steel, mechanical and engineering) and 25 Churchill Place (cladding, structural steel and concrete).

All in the detail

So how do you get on the Canary Wharf supply chain? “We are always glad to give contractors who are capable of delivering the product we need an opportunity,” says MacCrann. But for those keen to sign up, expect a challenging client. “If you speak to our supply chain they’d say there’s no one that pushes and challenges them as much as we do because we’re always looking to improve on the process. But what they’d also say is they like to work for us because they understand our objectives. We spell out in infinite detail what we want to buy from them and therefore what they want to sell to us so it de-risks it for them.”

This attention to detail translates into cost-savings, he claims. “Because they know what we want and because they’ve done it over and over again, it becomes muscle memory - they know the scope of work we want to buy and we buy cheaper as a result.”

Despite striving for best value MacCrann is unconvinced by recent claims by Sir Stuart Lipton, chair of the Major Developers Group, that developers can cut up to a half off the cost of constructing towers. “What he’s talking about is modular, non-iconic construction. The industry responds to what the market wants. If you can get the market to downscale their aspirations for buildings then of course you can reduce costs. But I suspect the market doesn’t want what Stuart is suggesting.”

Looking at MacCrann’s models and his ambitious growth plans, he clearly hopes the market and indeed the people of London want what Canary Wharf is suggesting instead.