The Greater London Authority has launched the search for a new partner to redevelop Royal Albert Dock, part of the Royal Docks, and one of London's major development opportunities.

The GLA said the 30-acre (12 hectare) site has the potential for 4.3 million square feet of development close to Excel, University of East London and City Airport.

The Mayor of London also published ambitions to develop 36,000 new homes and 55,000 jobs at Royal Docks, which includes the Royal Albert Dock site. 

Montagu Evans, which was appointed to provide strategic advise on the project last year, is advising on the development partner search.

Royal Albert Dock is in the capital’s only enterprise zone. The marketing brief says employment uses on the site could include green technology and digital economy uses, sport, leisure and cultural production as well as life sciences, light-industrial and manufacturing, logistics, workspace and education.

That development will sit alongside a partially completed first phase, the majority of which has now been purchased by DPK, run by champion jockey and entrepreneur David Maxwell, as revealed by CoStar News in 2022. DPK initially bought a controlling stake in the energy centre at the site. The group then pieced together a bid for the critical first phase of the development, where six buildings have been completed.

Royal Albert Dock has extant planning consents for ultimately more than 3.5 million square feet of development incorporating residential, retail and commercial close to a station for the new Elizabeth line.

The first phase was marketed for sale through liquidator PwC. Plans were for a total of 21 BREAAM Excellent waterside buildings adding up to more than 488,000 square feet.

Accountancy firm PwC was appointed as liquidator to 23 companies in the ABP Group, the Chinese developer behind the stalled plans, in July 2022. The completed units in the first phase, 56,000 square feet of offices and retail, have largely remained empty.

Planning and development consultancy Montagu Evans has been working with the Greater London Authority on a strategic review of the wider site across phases two to six.

To complicate matters, in March 2022, CoStar News revealed that Deloitte HK, acting as administrator for Hong Kong's Hang Seng Bank, had appointed Oxygen Asset Management, the UK investor, asset and development manager, to advise on the asset management and disposal of the six developed offices at the stalled scheme.

ABP had secured £60 million in funding from Hang Seng Bank previously to refinance part of a construction loan on the first phase of the scheme, which was due to mature.

The developer had been working on the project with joint venture partner the Greater London Authority and partner and lender Citic.

Royal Albert Dock is within the wider Royal Docks area and is one of seven large development sites being brought forward across 175 hectares of public land belonging to the GLA. Approximately £5 billion of investment is planned for the area over the next 20 years.

A new Delivery Plan (2024-2029) sets out the vision and key delivery priorities for the Royal Docks over the next five years.

The major of London's City Hall home relocated to the Royal Docks in 2022 from London Bridge.

Anchor institutions such as Tate & Lyle, ExCeL London, London City Airport and the University of East London are located by the site, which is on the north side of the historic Royal Albert Dock water body. To the south is London City Airport, to the west is ExCel London and to the east University of East London.

The Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, said in a statement: “Once the beating heart of global trade, today the Royal Docks is re-emerging as one of the country’s leading areas of opportunity, investment, and innovation.

“I am pleased that we are now looking for a new development partner to transform Royal Albert Dock, one of the key sites in the Royal Docks. This will play a major role in the capital’s continuing economic success and growth Eastwards.”

Procurement of a new development partner is being led by the Royal Docks team, a joint initiative from the Mayor of London and the Mayor of Newham, on behalf of GLA Land and Property as freeholder.

Formal procurement is expected to start in summer 2024 following an initial period of market engagement in the spring.

The seven developments that are being brought forward on land owned by the GLA are: Royal Albert Dock, Silvertown, Albert Island, Royal Albert Wharf, Thameside West, Royal Victoria Square and Royal Eden Docks.

In 2015 Chinese President Xi Jinping and the-then UK Prime Minister David Cameron were on site to sign an initial deal to bring forward the massive derelict London riverfront area as a finance hub with £200 million of initial financing being provided by leading Chinese banks.

ABP, run by Chinese developer Xu Weiping, had planned to sell some buildings to owner-occupiers while leasing up others for income. In particular, it targeted Chinese occupiers and investors who wanted to coalesce in one area relatively close to central London.

Subsequently, the ramifications of Brexit and deteriorating Anglo-China relations plus the coronavirus and the ongoing retrenchment of Chinese real estate companies from foreign investment all played their part in slowing progress. Other Chinese developers selling out of or reducing their commitments to major London projects have included R&F, Shimao and Greenland.

In an interview with CoStar News in 2020 Xu described how the scheme had been remodelled in response to all of these factors.

Just one office tenant, Taiwanese technology firm Advantech, had moved into the project's 21-building first phase then, taking up a mere 2,200 square feet, and chairman Xu said the company was planning to remarket and convert the space into 2,000 micro offices aimed at capitalising on an anticipated demand for personalised space.