London’s famous retail and commercial island site at the junction of Piccadilly Circus is on sale for £450 million (S$779.93 million). The freehold site, also known as Lucent, is known for the recognisable Piccadilly Lights, the largest advertising screen in Western Europe.
The one-acre mixed-use site comprises 188,000 sq ft of mixed-use space with new offices (126,000 sq ft) and four flagship retail stores of 58,000 sq ft. The stores front Regent Street and Shaftesbury Avenue, and are leased to tenants like Boots and Lindt.
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If the property is sold, it would be the largest single sale in the West End of London since 2022.
The property is sold by UK-based commercial development and investment company Landsec, which has appointed Savills and investment bank Lazard as the joint marketing and sales agents.
While the sale of the property includes the freehold that underpins the iconic Piccadilly Lights, Landsec will continue to operate the digital infrastructure on a 250-year leasehold as well as retain 95% of the net operating income of the advertising screen.
The site for sale is world-renowned and represents an incredibly rare opportunity to buy a high-profile freehold asset in London’s West End, says Paul Cockburn, director in the Central London Investment team at Savills.
In 2023, Landsec completed a scheme to combine 13 buildings behind the Piccadilly Lights into a single block. This saw the conserved facades restored and major new build elements added, such as a seven-storey mixed-use block. Since then, the development has been highly successful in attracting premier office and retail tenants, and is nearly fully occupied.
“This is a highly successful scheme that was largely pre-let and so is now leased at below-market rents. With limited risk exposure and exciting growth characteristics, we expect it to appeal to investors across the globe,” says Cockburn.
The Piccadilly Circus junction was built to connect Regent Street to Piccadilly in 1819 and has since evolved into one of the city’s popular tourist hotspots. The building, which has the distinctive advertising screen, has been owned by Landsec since the 1970s.
From this location, popular entertainment and retail districts Piccadilly, Leicester Square, Trafalgar Square, Shaftesbury Avenue and Regent Street are easily walkable.
Combined with the high footfall due to its prime location near to Soho and Mayfair, home to the UK’s most expensive commercial and residential neighbourhoods, capital appreciation and rental yield are two factors that cannot be overlooked.
This sale comes on the back of the government’s ongoing regeneration and modernisation in central London, with five London boroughs identified for multi-million pound regeneration projects. In August 2024, Mayor Sadiq Khan announced that £12.4 million would be spent across the city on improving public spaces, cycleways and high streets across the capital.
The limited new supply in Central London and focus on redevelopment of older buildings into mixed-use developments has translated to sustained high prices in the capital’s historical property appreciation.
Investors who see the site’s potential are likely to consider the barriers to entry, which includes planning regulations, heritage restrictions, high cost and keen competition for a global landmark, as protecting its long-term value.
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