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By Brenda Goh
Britain's largest listed property developer is close to solving the incendiary solar glare problem for the "Walkie Talkie," its landmark new 37-story glass office block in the City of London, and it continues to attract tenants, the company said on Tuesday. "Despite the solar glare issue of the summer, occupiers have not been blinded to the efficiency and location of the building. We are close to resolving the issue and it will not delay occupation nor inflate the budgeted cost," Land Securities said.
The skyscraper at 20 Fenchurch Street was dubbed the "Walkie Talkie" by Londoners because of its flared shape but then became known as the "Walkie Scorchie" last summer after it was blamed for scorching the panels of a Jaguar car and the seat of a bicycle parked on a street below. (It's pictured above being photographed by a pedestrian back on in Sept. 4.) But Land Securities said on Tuesday that the scheme was now 56 percent pre-let with a further 20 percent in the pipeline ahead of the building opening to users next April.
Chief Executive Rob Noel told Reuters that that the cost of the solution -- expected to be in the low, single-digit millions -- would be borne by the project's contingency fund and would include solar shading being applied to the tower's exterior. A temporary scaffold screen was put up in September outside the tower to shield affected shops. "The cost will be minimal. When you are pushing the boundaries of physics when building these tall buildings you won't always get it right," Noel said.
Land Securities jointly owns the building with Canary Wharf Group, which is majority owned by Songbird Estates. The skyscraper was one of the projects that Land Securities restarted in London after the financial crisis in a bet that the British capital's office market would face a shortage of space after construction plummeted during the downturn.
"The demand that we said was going to come is now coming," Noel said, adding that it was coming from insurance, business services and media firms as well as a number of foreign banks.
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