Monday 7 October 2013

Update on the CB1 Development

‘Change is usually sad, but it is dangerous to live too much in the past, and to overstate the past at the expense of the future.’ Graham Dawbarn, architect (1893-1976).

By way of a counterpoint to criticism of new buildings in Cambridge, Will Mooney, Carter Jonas partner and head of its commercial agency and professional services in the eastern region, shakes his pom-poms to cheerlead the new.

The quote, courtesy of The Twentieth Century Society website (www.c20society.org.uk), was made in 1956 by the architect in response to opposition to redevelopment plans for Imperial College which meant the demolition of the Victorian Institute in South Kensington.

Also on the Society’s website is an authored piece which describes the New Museums Site on Pembroke Street in Cambridge as “….Cambridge’s most elating piece of Brutalism.” Brutalism is a positive reference in this context and refers to a style of post-1945 architecture The New Museums Site was built between 1966 and 1974 and, in the University’s current plans for redeveloping this campus, it has engaged a heritage planning consultant.

If you’ve been living or working in Cambridge for as long as I have, you might still refer to various locations in the city which have been modernised by their old, pre-development names. If not all the time, then it’s often useful explaining the locations to fellow, old Cantabrigians who are not so involved in the property and development scene in the city. Christ’s Lane as Bradwell’s Court and the Cambridge Leisure Park as the Cattle Market.

It’s a decade since the old cattle market site was redeveloped as Cambridge Leisure Park. It’s almost unforgivable for us property people to make these venial vocabulary slips. Especially if we’ve been involved in the deals like I was in securing the Leisure Park for Travelodge. Ten years on and I’ve been involved in the deal which has seen another Travelodge open this past summer as part of the Eastern Gateway redevelopment of the city.

While people might not like the specific architectural design of the buildings themselves in the locations I’ve referenced here, it would be a strange view indeed, if people preferred to retain the dilapidated buildings or derelict sites of these locations before their redevelopment.

The cb1 development will ensure the city’s railway station will no longer be the disappointment it must have been to many on first arrival. It will be a fitting complement to the impressive King’s Cross/St Pancras redevelopment from where many visitors will have boarded the train to Cambridge.

The planning application’s lodged for a second railway station to the north of the city and not before time if you’re arriving in Cambridge by train and expecting to do business at its influential science and business parks.

And it’s commerce which is driving these new developments. It’s the same commercial forces which have fostered economic prosperity in the city at a time of recession.

A recently published book called “Hideous Cambridge: a city mutilated” sees its author and city resident, David Jones take a light-hearted but critical swipe at what he sees as the city’s ugliest buildings - which are also some of its newest.

This is some of the very property offering in the city – whether that’s commercial or residential – which struggles to keep pace with demand so the developers must be doing something right. It’s in not developers’ commercial interest to build something nobody wants to live or work in.

To my mind, Cambridge is, at last, beginning to look like the modern city it is. Change can be sad and, in this city, change certainly doesn’t go unchallenged.

In any location, the changes in skyline and at street level brought about by new buildings and development are of their time now as much as these things always are. I am sure The Twenty First Century Society will agree.


Will Mooney MRICS
Partner

Commercial, Cambridge

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