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US Embassy in barracks bid
THE US Embassy looks set to move out of Grosvenor Square after making a shock bid for Chelsea Barracks.
The Americans have emerged on a shortlist of 10 to buy the £500million site in Chelsea Bridge Road, put up for sale by the Ministry of Defence in October.
Other bidders include the Qatar government, Dubai’s property giant DP World and Irish property magnate Derek Quinlan.
It follows last week’s surprise announcement that the American government were in talks with landlords Grosvenor about “relocation”.
A spokesman for the Embassy last night confirmed they were “on the shortlist”.
Property experts speculate the Americans have been priced out of Mayfair after Grosvenor announced raised their rates to more than £120 per square foot per week – more than double the top price for space in New York and Tokyo.
The US Embassy is the only embassy in the world not owned by its own country and a move to the dilapidated concrete fortress would suit them according to John Forrester at property firm DTZ.
He said an influx of hedge funds and private equity firms had forced out a series of businesses from their historic homes, including fashion giant Burberry Richard Ellis and King Sturge.
“It could be the US have had enough,” he said.
The bid will prove popular with community leaders in Mayfair who have feared for their safety since the September 11 terror attacks.
The Grosvenor and Mayfair Residents Association, the Mayfair and St James’s Society and the Mayfair Action Group had called for the pedestrianisation of the area to prevent possible car bomb attacks.
But Westminster Council, which in a housing report in September last year earmarked the prestigious 13-acre site for redevelopment including 50 per cent social housing, will not share their joy.
And residents in Kensington and Chelsea are likely to mount a campaign against the move, a spokesman for the Chelsea Residents Association said.
But Mayfair residents were last night rejoicing after a long-running campaign to boot the Americans out of Mayfair, stretching back to the Vietnam protests in the late 1960s, moved a step closer.
The Duke of Westminster once said he would sell the land outright if the US was willing to return it to his family who owned the area before it was confiscated during the War of Independence. |
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