King’s Cross – the story so far

king’s Cross Central (KXC) will be the largest central London development in more than 160 years and will be the last on this scale unless there is a disaster or we start to pave over the Royal Parks.

Not only is KXC at the terminus of major local, national and international transport links – including the soon to be completed Channel Tunnel Rail Link at St Pancras International – it is also the confluence of six London Underground lines, a new Thameslink station, and is bounded by the trunk road network. KXC will rejuvenate an area that has until recent times been associated with urban decay.

Stakeholder management

Identification of and engagement with all stakeholders, particularly during the early stages when proposals are generally more flexible and receptive to change, is critical in securing delivery of the masterplan. Argent, for example, consulted with thousands of individuals, predominantly members of the local community, alongside statutory consultees such as the London boroughs of Camden and Islington, English Heritage, Cabe and the Greater London Authority.

To ensure that consultation is useful, participants must be well informed. Early in the process Argent produced ‘Parameters for Regeneration’ a compendium of the information affecting the site: location, transport links, infrastructure, as well as policy parameters such as the meaning of high density and mixed use.

With all major developments, there are differences in opinions, agendas and aspirations, but certain key themes emerged. Not surprisingly, given the past history of King’s Cross, safety and cleanliness came out top, with employment and housing being vital to many and heritage valued highly. There was an overwhelming desire to see development happen.

Land use and diversity

Achieving a balance and mix of differing uses for each phase of development that meets commercial viability criteria is essential to creating a place that functions independently in the first instance, but also as a whole when subsequent phases are released.

KXC will have 50-60 individual buildings delivering some 8 million ft². There will be up to 4.9 million ft2 of commercial space, 0.5 million ft² of retail space, 2 million ft² of residential accommodation and 0.2 million ft² of car parks within 27 acres of principal public realm.

The spectrum of uses will enable it to be a vibrant, inclusive and interactive space seven days a week, day and night which will appeal to all age groups and sections of society. This diverse mix is also an important part of the risk management strategy. Risk is diversified by reducing dependence on any individual use class which will mitigate the impact of the inevitable economic cycles that the development will encounter through its 12-20 year build-out.

Density

At a central London, major transport interchange and brownfield site the logic to maximise density and land use is compelling. But this needs to be tempered by the need to create a place where people want to be; a human city.

Seeking to maximise development potential while addressing the challenges of responding sympathetically to a range of other requirements is a challenge as many of these tend to pull in different directions. Requirements include: heritage criteria, daylighting and microclimate, site wide topography and accessibility, mixing housing with other use classes, enabling works, E E adjoining building conditions, the strategic views of St Paul’s, the Regent’s Canal, the scale and condition of surrounding development and infrastructure. An optimum needs to be sought.

And high density does not have to mean high-rise. Schemes with towers need to be surrounded by more public realm (Broadgate and Canary Wharf are of similar density but very different in form) and the financial risk required to deliver towers speculatively often requires that substantial pre-lets must be in place before development commences. A development that achieves its density using a lower rise approach can deliver buildings in more manageable chunks, helping reduce the risks of speculative development, an important component of optimising take-up.

Whereas some developments with high densities can offer a relentless urban landscape, this scheme offers 10 major new public spaces including Cubitt Park, which at 7,000m2 is only a little smaller than the footprint of a modern football stadium. High density does not mean a lessening of the quality of the space; in fact, 40% of the site footprint is public realm, 50% of the site is building footprint, and the remainder is secondary circulation and servicing space.

The main site development will include 1,700 residential units, of which 750 have been earmarked as affordable housing, including 500 social for rented units. Family housing in particular will generate the need for social infrastructure such as primary schools and a children’s centre, primary health care and sports and leisure facililties.

High-density development can create efficiencies through the adjacency of land uses: commercial office space and homes will benefit from proximity to retail and leisure uses, alongside the transport links.

Place making

Successful places are occupied by people. To create a good quality space there must be reasons why people want to be there. A good step to achieving this is to create an interesting and high-quality urban realm.

The site comes with some valuable heritage resources: the listed gas holders, the Goodsyard and Granary Complex, the Regent’s Canal, the Stanley Building and the Great Northern Hotel, alongside the two Grade 1 listed stations. Alongside the retained historical architecture there will be some 50 new buildings and 10 new major public spaces that will be designed by a range of architects and landscape architects. A balance will need to be struck between the amount of calmer, recognisable buildings and architectural “bling”.

People generally like to be in high-quality spaces. They will return time and time again to high quality space that provides a vibrant and safe environment. To this end the strategy for lighting, physical security and hard and soft landscaping will be an integrated solution designed to provide this. Furthermore a durable, functional, low-maintenance solution that is appropriate to its surroundings will enable the differing elements and phases of development to mesh together as the scheme is built out.

Flexibility

Fluctuations in prevailing market conditions and economic cycles are inevitable over the scheme’s 12-20 year build out period. To be successful there needs to be a flexible framework for development.

This is a diverse development. The aggregate of the maximum permitted floorspace for each of the uses actually adds up to a number greater than the total permitted floor space overall. This will allow the developers some degree of flexibility to trade one use class against another to tweak the development to respond to market conditions.

The degree of flexibility has limits, however, not least to ensure that decision-makers know what the scheme for which they are granting planning permission is and to allow it to be capable of environmental impact assessment. This is achieved by a raft of parameters to ensure that the development is implemented within the range of scenarios envisaged.

The phasing strategy needs to consider the infrastructure, public realm and Section 106 triggers. The implementation strategy aims to reduce exposure to advanced funding while providing a framework that allows the developer to deliver product as market demand dictates.

Flexibility to adapt to future changes in building technology, infrastructure provision and emerging sustainable technologies are all in-built in the scheme’s development framework. The provision of ductwork installation across the development, for example, enables a cost-effective manner of upgrade and supplementation without the need for expensive retro-fit operations. The ability to integrate new opportunities and adapt to legislative changes will need to be the cornerstones of any large-scale mixed-use development framework.

Sustainability

Delivering high-density, mixed-use development within a robust urban framework on a brownfield site with excellent transport connectivity is in itself sustainable, and sustainability is a cross-cutting theme throughout the development proposals. The scale of the scheme allows one to consider approaches to design and implementation that perhaps are less suited to smaller one off buildings. Site-wide strategies for construction and waste through to utilities and energy in particular can deliver economic and environmental benefits.

The development will include “visible” energy technologies such as photovoltaics, solar thermal and wind turbines. However, the really significant carbon savings will come through less visible yet more fundamental means. The fabric of each new building will need to be 5% better than building requlations, even as they become more stringent in the future, before considering other committed carbon saving measures. None of the residential apartments will use electric heating.

The most significant measure, however, will be the implementation of a district heating network that will facilitate the use of combined heat and power (CHP) and trigeneration. The variety of land uses across the development will have energy demand profiles that vary throughout the day which helps the viability E E of CHP. The district heating system lends itself to emerging technologies as well, and the development will include at least one fuel cell. Subject to market conditions, the district heating system will also incorporate biomass boilers. This package of measures will deliver carbon savings of some 32% better than business-as-usual benchmarks, and some 39% better if market conditions that allow the use of biomass are in place.

Through construction there will be strategies to minimise waste and recycle where waste cannot be eliminated. One of the most basic applications of the waste reduction strategy is the re-use of 20 heritage structures. Those existing structures that will not be retained will be crushed and used as hardcore.

Forward funding

The financing costs of any large-scale mixed-use scheme will form a sizeable part of any development appraisal. So minimising these costs is a key consideration and may have an impact on the viability of the phasing strategy.

Although managing the cashflow is vitally important, it is possible to be too mealy-mouthed. One of the major challenges in regeneration schemes is changing perceptions. Having core elements of infrastructure in place while marketing further phases is a potent way of achieving this.

Similarly, it is important to be able to respond quickly to market opportunities and ensure that you have a certain core infrastructure capacity secured early on. For example, you don’t want to wait until a large occupier expresses an interest in the development that will push you over capacity thresholds before placing long lead-in orders.

The size of phases and rate of delivery needs to be considered carefully. On the one hand delivering quickly can help to generate the critical mass that will make others want to come. On the other hand oversupply in market sectors can be financially debilitating if it leads to suppressed rents/sales prices and long void periods.

Successful regeneration needs to balance delivery of non-income generating works with income-generating development. In the case of KXC, the phasing has been structured in such a way that non-income generating public spaces are linked to the delivery of buildings that will benefit from them. The early phases will, however, bear the brunt of infrastructure delivery and the real challenge is to make it through these early phases in one piece.

A long-term view on financial returns has been adopted and it could be up to 10 years before the development becomes cash flow positive. Large-scale, mixed-use regeneration requires stamina.

Phasing

The first phases are often the hardest as they need to generate sufficient returns and income streams to manage debt and any ongoing interest payments accumulated while implementing these phases. Achieving such a holding position allows sensible decisions on the timing of future phases to be made.

A phasing strategy that is too far-reaching and provides supply that is surplus to what the market can absorb is likely to run into financial difficulties. To this end the various phases of the scheme will deliver manageable amounts of different land uses and this will minimise exposure to such risks.

Achieving pre-lets reduces the risks of development and can give one confidence to accelerate the development programme.

Attracting large anchor occupants to act as a draw for other tenants can assist the certainty of development and subsequently the ability to phase the works in a manner to suit demand from other occupiers.

Section 106 commitments constitute significant development milestones. Bearing this in mind, it is imperative to establish packages of work that fulfil the requirements of planning, enable the development to operate adequately and fulfil commercial viability criteria.

Commercial viability

Large-scale mixed-use development is risky business and the challenge is to manage these risks by understanding the site and applying thorough due diligence. It is critical to appreciate how a mixed-use scheme will respond to the market and to tailor the build-out appropriately. Phases need to be in meaningful but manageable chunks. Furthermore, making sure you understand your product, the market and ensuring you can deliver within the cost parameters you set are fundamental ingredients to a successful development.