First 100 residents move in to first batch of swanky flats as vast £9bn development starts to rise from the rubble at the south London landmark
Pop veteran Sting, celebrity survival expert Bear Grylls and 1,400 Apple office workers will soon be neighbours – living and working alongside each other at Battersea Power Station.
The £9bn project to revamp the Grade II listed building – more than it cost to build the stadiums and stage the 2012 London Olympics – is the centrepiece of a mile-long development of offices and apartment towers on the south bank of the Thames stretching from Vauxhall to Chelsea bridge.
After four years of construction, the development is now starting to take shape and the first 100 residents have just moved in to a luxury apartment complex alongside the main building, called Circus West Village. And for the first time in 90 years the power station’s riverfront, with a new piazza and parkland, is now accessible to all.
The former power plant won’t open its doors to the public for shopping and leisure until 2020, when a new tube station, called Battersea Power Station, comes online to whisk workers, visitors and the development’s well-heeled residents into the West End or the City in less than 15 minutes.
A glass lift is to be built to take visitors to a viewing platform atop the power station’s landmark white chimneys, where they will have sweeping views across the river from a height of more than 100m (330ft).