Filling forty football pitches

When the Olympics leaves London, a hangar the size of 40 football pitches will be left behind. It’s low spec, big, hard to get to, and in the middle of a giant park. What better for some creative use?

The Olympic media and broadcast centre (on the right in the banner image) is a requirement of any modern Olympics - it’ll house the 20,000 journalists covering the games.

But it’s also a bit too big for anyone else. A football pitch of new space is manageable - but 40? What goes in it after the games? The owners (the Olympics Legacy Company) have been desperately trying to work up interest in the space.

This has hit some early hurdles, with frontrunners the BBC's EastEnders operation deciding not to relocate filming there, despite the park's being assigned the same London postcode - E20 - as the soap’s fictitious location.

 

Too big for one tenant
Bids for use of the space were due in at the start of December, but some have been revealed. No one wants the whole £355m (380m Euros) complex. So they’ll have to come up with a mix for it.
Some bids have been focused on sport or industry. Among these Trumans is looking to take 20,000 sq ft for a brewery and pub. University-combination of UCL and Loughborough University want to develop a Cell Therapy Technology & Innovation Centre. And Loughborough alone wants to create a postgraduate sports research facility.

But most are creative uses. TV-station Channel 5 wants to take more than 20,000 sq ft of space for studios, archives and post-production. The Institute of Black Culture, Media, and Sport is looking to introduce an education, training, and sport facility of 50,000 sq ft.

Two workspace providers are in the mix. Shoreditch Trust, a social enterprise with a great reputation for workspace for creatives, and Workspace Group, who already provide accomodation for 1 in 50 of London’s creative businesses.

 

Made for a creative use
So why the creative focus?

First, it’s already got lots of the facilities that creative businesses want. That means great internet, lots of cabling, and flexible space. This suits film and TV businesses.

Second, it’s close to existing creative locations like Hackney Wick. This is a poor but interesting part of London full of artists and empty space.

And that gives us a reminder of the third reason - it’s cheap. This is a glut of space on the market and buyers know they can get a bargain. And no-one likes cheap like the creative industries.