Horizon building Ilford

On 3 December 2015, property regeneration company U+I announced that it had received planning consent and entered into a partnership with IP Global to deliver high quality homes at the gateway to Ilford, next to the newCrossrail station. Ref U+I to deliver Ilford regeneration project next to Crossrail station designed by Sir Terry Farrell.

U+I transforms undervalued and overlooked parts of towns and cities into neighbourhoods and communities. It has a portfolio of mixed-use regeneration projects in London, the south-east, Manchester and Dublin. It is committed innovation and ideas to enable long-term, sustainable change, creating places where people and enterprise can thrive.

Valentine’s House in Ilford, a 55,000 sq ft, mostly vacant office building, will be transformed into a mixed-use development designed by internationally-renowned architect Sir Terry Farrell. Relaunched as the ‘Horizon building’, the development will provide 122 one and two bedroom flats, and will include a communal balcony on the roof. The ground floor will provide 16,000 sq ft of retail space to bring life and activity to the streetscape, and will include new aCrossrail ticket station making the building the arrival point to Ilford. Crossrail will see journey times from Ilford to Liverpool Street cut to just 17 minutes, making it an important gateway to Central London.

The new Horizon building will be a key part of the ongoing transformation of Ilford, which includes an anticipated £1 billion worth of investment in the town centre and the area around the station over the next six years.

The development is due to be completed at the end of 2017. The agreement with IP Global is for the sale of all 122 residential units.

Matthew Weiner, Chief Executive of U+I, said, “This is an exciting regeneration project, in which U+I is transforming a largely vacant office building into a beautiful mixed-use development for Ilford. We have a number of projects in suburban London locations where demand for beautifully designed new homes is strong. We also identified several years ago that Crossrail would be a significant driver of growth and as a result, have selected live projects along the Crossrail route at Slough, Abbey Wood, Ilford and Hayes. The partnership with IP Global, our second to date following our joint success at The Deptford Project, is allowing us to deliver a high quality residential product to the market and I am very pleased to see such high demand for the residential units”.

Hamish Pound, Investment Manager at IP Global, said, “Ilford is very much a hotspot in London right now. Its growing population as well as the advent of Crossrail means the area has real potential. Prices are almost a third lower than London’s average so it also offers the value that investors are hard pressed to find elsewhere in the capital.”