Jobs vow sways town centre deal
Saturday 17th December 2011, 3:00PM GMT.
The J1 development that has been approved
A HUGE development going head to head with the Waterfront in the market for top-quality offices has been given the go-ahead by Planning.
The £150 million J1 scheme between Broad Street and Commercial Street has been approved and the 267,000 square foot building is likely to provide stiff competition to the States’ own plans to develop a new finance district at the Waterfront.
An eight-storey office block on the western end of the Esplanade has also been submitted by developers Dandara.
Developers C Le Masurier Ltd are chasing the same finance industry tenants that the Jersey Development Company are seeking for the Esplanade Square project, with the Royal Bank of Canada believed to be the number one target.
But the head of the Jersey Development Company, Lee Henry, says that their Esplanade Square plans were ‘probably on a par’ with the J1 scheme.
He said that the fact that the Le Masurier site is leased to tenants – in parts up until 2022 – means that they will not be able to deliver the whole scheme as quickly as the Esplanade Square.
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Good. A civil service free project.
It just might work without costing the taxpayer an arm and a leg.
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If both these sites are under construction at the same time, then they will have to recruit more labour from Eastern Europe, unless of course, they find a cheaper source.
They will not employ local people.
Maximising profits is all that matters,NOTHING else.
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The Esplanade will never be on par with J1 as it is using island money!
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Are they all just chasing rainbows. Has anyone bothered to take a serious look at what is happening with the retail sector in St Helier and what is going down in the real world. Do not build for building sake please take a look at what happened in Ireland. You are chasing the false economy again.
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@ Shamus – I could not agree more, and I fully expect an influx of more migrants to complete this work!
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Do the plans still include demolition of Two listed buildings?
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hopefully.
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Jay. Probably. But have a look at the corner of Hilgrove Street and Halkett Street (old Video Centre site). John Constable is coming back to paint it shortly. I’ve bought him a penny farthing bike!
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His painting would look better if some berk hadn’t daubed grey paint over the historic buildings there and let them get run down.
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they are a load of old tat, the grey buildings that is.
the only thing in french lane of any merit is the prince of wales pub and the gate of the market.
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Quite right too. The pub and the market are the only two historic things left apart from the two shops, which is why the court of appeal directed that the shops be saved. Since that judgment in 2004, the shops have been deliberately painted that awaful colour and left to run into dereliction, which is why they today do indeed appear to be”old tat”.
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I’m pretty sure that a private (local) business thinking of investing £150m in a project would have completed the feasibily studies to support it. Given the states form in this area, id prefer that private monies are spent and the ifmand reaps the income tax, social security and gst benefits. Listed buildings are to be respected and protected, but only if they are preserved and utilised and not left to rot.
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A lot of developers deliberately leave listed buildings to rot because they want to knock them down and they get refused. By leaving them to rot, the developer hopes that the building will either fall down or they will succeed on the “anything’s better than what’s there” argument, perhaps after a change of officers or states members at planning.
The public aren’t stupid-we know perfectly well what the developers are doing.
It is pure greed.
Planning has the power to go in and make good and send the owner-developer a bill. I would like to see this power used much more often.
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I compleatly aggree, Developers are leaving buildings to rot, to knock down and re-build. After all, thats exactly what happened to the Inn on the Park, Jersey College for Girls and the Fort Regent swimming pool.
Oops, did I jump the gun on the last two…
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In the present climate of uncertainty I doubt a feasibility study is worth the paper it is written on.
There are plenty of empty shops around St Helier and retail is under pressure. Where will the finance industry be in three years time? Banks are bound to retrench with the losses that they are facing.
There is not much cheerful news from the UK and the EC crisis seems to be limping on.
Only a few years ago developers were selling houses off plan so the purchasers effectively financed the development, it is not like that today and probably will not be like that for some time to come!
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Hopefully the economic situation will mean that the finance quarter gets knocked on the head before it is too late. Whatever the states touches tends to go wrong. Trusting them to get this right is like expecting a canary to lay ostrich eggs.
I expect the Le Mas development to put the Esplanade Square in the shade. It will probably go the same way as Liberty Wharf, another white elephant which the taxpayer will be paying for for many years to come.
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The J1-Le Masurier development is architecturally far superior than the JDC’s sugar cube plan for the finance quarter.
I hope they start listening and realising that the States do not need to spend money when private investment is available.
Three developments (Dandara have plans for the West end of the Esplanade!) are too many when no guarantees exist on their occupation.
RBC has been mentioned however they already have extensive property portfolio in town. IF they move to new shiny building then the old ones become available for development. We do not need or want town to be encircled by sky scrapers and ghastly iconic buildings.
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I disagree!
I’d love to see st helier built upwards (I.e. taller buildings) to preserve the countryside which I love!
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I’d just love to know who they think is going to fill these developments ?
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Fill the developments, they will be like the Liberty Wharf – mostly empty with some Sandpiper shops/offices paying reduced (if any) rent.
There is no way the Waterfront development should go ahead, if le Masurier’s believe they can make money – good on them.
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