Greenland Finalises $1B Project on London’s Canary Wharf

Shanghai-based outbound investment champion and real estate developer Greenland Group officially announced on Wednesday that it had purchased a project on London’s Canary Wharf to develop a $1 billion mixed-use project.

The acquisition, which had been prematurely made known by Greenland in January when the state-run firm bought the site of London’s oldest brewery for a $984 million mixed-use project, was finalised recently when Greenland and Commercial Estates Group (CEG) exchanged contracts for the Hertsmere Tower site at the northwest corner of Canary Wharf.

According to a report in Reuters, the existing permit for the site allows for construction of a 242-metre tall building containing 700 homes, as well as offices and shops. The project is predicted to be worth $1 billion when complete.

Greenland’s project at the brewery site in London has outline permission for building 661 new homes, including a 36 storey landmark tower on the 7.7 acre site.

Greenland Goes Global

Earlier this week the developer had made known a preliminary deal for a $360 million, 67,000 square metre residential development in Toronto. By landing the project in Canada, Greenland had planted the corporate flag in its seventh country in the last two years, after earlier deals in Australia, Malaysia, South Korea, Spain, Thailand, the UK, and the US.

While Greenland’s pipeline of projects is ambitious, at least in the case of a project it acquired in Sydney last year, it has been able to quickly convert development projects into cashflow through pre-sales of homes to individual investors.

According to reports from the company, its Sydney Greenland Centre project sold US$246 million in soon-to-be-existing homes (250 of the 480 total units in the building) by the close of the first weekend of sales.