Good evening and welcome to 100 New Bridge Street, Helical’s newest completed building. More on the building shortly, however first I want to give a couple of thanks. Thank you Tom for your excellent speech and Cam for your welcome. However most importantly, I want to express a huge thank you, on behalf of both the CPA and myself, to Ross Sayers, for whom today marks the end of his spectacular two years as CPA Chair. I was speaking to someone about Ross recently and they said to me, “he’s the guy in the room that everyone wants to talk to”, which sums Ross up perfectly. However, he is not only pretty much the nicest and most popular man in property, he is also so very good at what he does and has achieved a great deal during his two year tenure as Chair. His calm yet authoritative manner, expert chairing of meetings and excellent speeches are a constant example of how to do things brilliantly. Thank you Ross, you are fantastic and I have a great deal to live up to in following you into this role.
While I am speaking on a personal note, to continue just for a moment I wanted to say a little bit about why I accepted this role. When Ross first asked me if I would consider taking it on, my initial internal response was absolutely, categorically not. I had an instant and significant attack of imposter syndrome and all the multitude reasons why I couldn’t and shouldn’t do this came flooding into my head. When I got back to the office, I told Matthew Bonning-Snook what I had been asked to do and, rather than confirming and validating all of my worries and perceived inadequacies, he contradicted every single one of them and just couldn’t have been more supportive and encouraging for which I thank him very much. So, I therefore thought, what if I reframed the narrative, and turned all the reasons not to do this into reasons to do it. After all, our differences are what make us stronger and if even one person can see me standing up here as someone who doesn’t necessarily quite conform to the property norm and take any inspiration from that, then I will be doing what I set out to achieve.
Which brings me nicely on to what I do want to do over the next few years. I am extremely honoured to have been given this opportunity and the CPA has a vital role to play in shaping the City of London’s future. I am really passionate about the creation of great buildings, just like this one, and I intend to continue the excellent work that Ross and the CPA board and team have been doing to ensure that the creation of places like this remains viable and realistic, so that the City of London continues to prosper and thrive as the leading global centre that it is.
However, it is not just about the buildings. The buildings are here to facilitate collaboration, creativity, connection and community and in order to make occupiers want to take space and in turn for their workforce to really want to come into the office, the buildings have to be great. Not just ok, but really great. That is why we at Helical and many of our peers go to so much effort to make sure that every detail of the spaces we are creating is exemplary.
But no one wants to spend all day in the office. Which is where another of my passions and our CPA priorities comes in, being culture. The spaces, places, activities and opportunities surrounding our places of work are just as important as the buildings themselves. This is what provides the fun, the extra, the connection and the desire to stay. We are very lucky to work with the fantastic team at the City who not only understand the many challenges faced by developers, but who also understand the considerable importance of making sure the City is a truly vibrant destination and who really comprehend that the provision of meaningful culture isn’t actually an extra at all, it is just as important as the provision of really good buildings and successful infrastructure. Therefore the promotion of Destination City and support of the City’s cultural strategy will be a priority over the coming months, as well as continued hard and collaborative work with the City to ensure that development remains viable, sustainable and beneficial, not just for London but for the benefit of the UK economy as a whole.
I must just talk a little about the building that we are in as this is our one opportunity to show it off before it gets handed over to its new owners. Working with Gensler architects, Mace, our excellent project team and our JV partners Orion, we have totally transformed what was a dated and dilapidated building, into the beautiful space that we are all now in. This project exemplifies the Helical approach to development; reusing wherever possible, creatively improving and constantly pushing the boundaries of what we are able to achieve in terms of sustainability, design and occupier experience. We are absolutely delighted that State Street chose 100 New Bridge Street as their new home, representing a significant move for them from their current location and demonstrating the ongoing desire for large international firms to locate themselves in the City. Thank you to State Street for being brilliant partners, we really hope that you are happy with what we have created for you.
I am shortly going to stop talking, but before I do, I would like to leave you with one more thing. Well two actually. But first, and very importantly, I want to say that the CPA is here for you, our members. We are here to work on your behalf to enable the successful continuation of what we are all doing, and to that end, please let us know if the work that we are doing is useful and productive for you. If any of you have any thoughts, questions or opinions, please do speak to me or any of the CPA team or board. I don’t take this position lightly and really do mean that we, and I, are here to make things better for all of you.
That was the first thing, and just before I really do stop, you might have noticed a rather fabulous group of people standing to my left, who you hopefully heard singing on your way in. This is London City Voices, a choir that I am extremely proud to be a member of and which exemplifies the benefits of culture, community and connection that I have been speaking about. I am now going to very subtly sneak off to join the ranks of the Alto Ones for our little performance, but please do stay for several more drinks with all of us, the one unifying factor between the choir and Helical is that they both love a party… Thank you so very much for coming tonight and I look forward to seeing you all at the Annual Lunch in just a few weeks time. Thank you.
