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The Midland Hotel |
Labour of love at Midland Hotel
RESEARCHERS have found that traffic on the Euston Road always slows down at a point near the cross roads by Judd Street and Midland Road.
And the reason is not a fear of being caught speeding by parking wardens coming out of the nearby Town Hall, or negotiating the construction traffic for the King’s Cross redevelopment. It is because driver’s attention is always caught by the grand façade of the former Midland Hotel.
Harry Handelsohn, the property developer whose company Manhattan Loft Corporation own the building, is not surprised: “It is one of the most remarkable buildings in Europe – or perhaps the world,” he enthuses. You just cannot help look at it.”
And he is not using estate agent speak to talk up sales – all the 68 homes have been sold for months – except one.
The cheapest went for £495,000, and the most expensive – which has been kept off the market for the time being as Harry and his team ponder its floor plan – is a penthouse apartment, valued at around £6m.
For Mr Handelsohn, making the building ship-shape and putting it back into use has been a labour of love.
He said: “I was surprised it was allowed to get into the state it was. It was a great opportunity to restore a landmark and give it a new lease of life.”
Adrian Owen from Hamptons, who sold the houses, said he had never seen property like it – and this gave him a unique problem. He had to completely re-think how much the homes were worth, and how to market them.
He said: “Harry first bought the site eight years ago and it has taken a lot of blood, sweat and tears to get to where we are today.
“I didn’t have to advertise them.
“We contacted people we had on our database, and we made a rule saying it was one apartment per person so we would not sell to investors.”
In the past six weeks, the new owners have exchanged contracts – having waited 15 months since buying the homes for building work and paper work to be finished.
The flats were so different, it was hard to know what to charge. Mr Owen spent two days wandering round the shell of the building with architects drawings in his hands, trying to imagine what each apartment would be like. The quick sale of the apartments – which will not be finished for another three years – is endemic of the housing market in King’s Cross.
Savills’ director Edward Hollest was part of a team who oversaw the development and sale of Regent’s Quarter, a 109-home mix of flats and affordable housing sandwiched between Gray’s Inn Road and King’s Cross Road.
Mr Hollest said: “The Regent’s Quarter sold very, very quickly, and this is part of a wider trend.
“Homes in King’s Cross are in terrific demand. People have seen how the area is changing and they can see the work being done to the mainline stations.”
And as well as investors buying to let, Mr Hollest says his office has noticed a trend that they could not have foreseen.
He said: “We have noticed a lot of homes being sold to people who live in Yorkshire. They come down to King’s Cross on the train, stay for the week in their London bolthole and then head back for the weekend. We even decided to put adverts in the Yorkshire Post after getting a flurry of queries." |
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