The redevelopment of New Covent Garden has taken a major step forward, after the Covent Garden Market Authority (CGMA) and tenants agreed a brief to secure the long-term future of the market.
Since September last year, the CGMA has undertaken a detailed survey of tenants in the market, to establish their future needs and business requirements and gauge their views on ways to create a modern market with fresh and flexible facilities.
The design brief suggests that the market area of 564,000 square feet will need to expand by 18 per cent, to 625,000sq ft, to allow for the growth of business predicted by tenants across the market’s sectors.
CGMA general manager Jan Lloyd told FPJ that the key requirements that designers of the new market will need to take into account include: long-term financial viability; flexibility, to cater for both growth and decline in different sectors; fit-for-purpose trading units; layout options that consider the possibility of hosting non-core uses of the market, or more than one storey; and the absolute need for the market to continue to trade throughout the redevelopment process.
Lloyd said: “We’re on track. If you are going to rebuild a market to last for the next 30 years, first you need to understand what it is that you want from it. The detail of how it will be presented is the next stage.”
She expects concepts to be on the table by the middle of this summer, but added that the timescale for recruiting a development planner is around two years from now.
“The majority of tenants’ leases expire in 2010, so we want clarification by spring 2009,” said Lloyd. “We have held three tenants briefings and the turnout at the last two was very good. Tenants were initially wondering whether it was going to happen at all, now they are asking about the practicalities, which shows that the engagement is building. There is no major discussion around the principles of what we are trying to do.”
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