First Phase Of Crossharbour Kicks Off

First Phase Of Crossharbour Kicks Off

Preparation work is underway on the former London Arena site at Crossharbour in London Docklands.

The project designed by Skidmore, Owings and Merrill for Ballymore who seem to be building almost every tall residential in the area right now. There will be eight buildings in the development in total climaxing in a 131 metre tall 43 floor tower.

The project has been on the go for a while now and was actually Ballymore's first tall residential project when floated back in 2001. Since then the design has changed substantially from what was originally planned to be a six tower complex in the shape of sails with the biggest being a 157 metre tall office tower.

This was all dumped for a project resembling the current one with low-rise blocks looking onto squares and a tower in the northern part that was residential mirroring the changing plans developers have had in docklands over the past decade moving away from working to living. The tower was then reduced in height following fears from the CAA it would infringe on the flight paths at City Airport to the present version.

Construction insiders have told Skyscrapernews.com that the scheme will be built in two phases with the initial work on the southern end of the site on the lower-rise blocks that range from 8 to 16 floors. The second phase of the project will be the northern end of the scheme that goes from 16 floors upwards and includes the tower.

The eight buildings that the project consists of will all be built over a common basement. To prepare for this, the excavation phase that is now underway will remove approximately 110,000 cubic metres of material which translates into just over 7,500 tonnes a week over the 26 week time frame.

There is expected to also be a gap of about a year in between the two phases, this means that work on the tower is unlikely to begin before 2009. That gives Ballymore plenty of time to play the same game they�ve played with other towers in Docklands and gradually have the height and floors escalated with repeated alterations to the originally approved planning application. For example Ontario Tower was increased by 15 metres from its originally approved height.

The start of this scheme comes a mere year after Pan Peninsula Towers was launched showing the sheer demand that Ballymore are struggling to cope with for high-rise living in the Docklands area.

It should be interesting to see if they play this tactic again the scheme gradually escalates a few metres a go as time progresses and this one also creeps towards the 150 metre mark.

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