Central Square

who writes this dross, at 92m it will be 15m shorter than meridian tower in Swansea. We're also in danger of having no square of note outside the station if Network Rail go ahead with their plans to upgrade the station facilities as per previous designs. Not that I mind a close compact square as you walk out of the station.


edit: for karl, here you go

That's not as bad as the Leeds tower but pretty grim all the same.

I was all excited seeing the picture of something relatively tall and then read the words 'student accomodation'.

Why not a regular apartment tower ? Why not a mixed use building that has a mixture of residential, hotel and maybe some serviced apartments with a little bit of retail on the ground floor ?

And why just 92m and 27 floors ? Why not properly sort out once and for all what tower is the tallest for quite some time in Wales and take it way over 30 floors and show some ambition ? That's hardly huge anyway and it would be a nice modern focal point for that whole part of the city.

Take me back to Dubai now please !

That's not as bad as the Leeds tower but pretty grim all the same.

do you think? I know one man's meat an all that but I quite like it, it certainly is a bit more interesting than owen's park

Student accomodation can be nice - but only the stuff at the very top end of the market. There are 3 schemes that I know in London - on Pentonville Road (Nido Kings Cross), Bethnal Green Road, and somewhere in Spitalfields (Nido Spitalfields) - which really do look pretty good, IMHO (although they may date because they use the fad for random blue and white glass panels). These rent out for something like £300+ a week though!

So if there is a market of relatively well-off international students whose daddy are willing to cough up maybe £150+ a week in the Cardiff context, we might get something nice.

I think we're being a bit unfair though - there is some new information. I was aware of Office plans - I think its more than the 500,000 quoted though (BBC is 150,000; building 1 is 135,000 and building 2 is 100,000.. so that is 385,000 already, and the plan suggests perhaps another 300,000 on the east side over the planned bus station), -, but not that there were plans for hundreds of apartments (private apparently.. begs the question where the s106 obligations for social housing will be fulfilled?). And a nice new render for the masterplan.

We can sometimes get a bit greedy I think. These things take time - and this scheme at least looks like it has some legs. 1 building underway. BBC confirmed. And the council finally set to make a decision on the bus station (and no change in party control will derail this in the near future).

Jantra - you are right, beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

But to me it's a big grey slab with really bad glazing and that awful, infantile Student Castle livery defacing the one side. The grey cladding could be interesting but not on a building that size. It's just too monolithic. The street level looks ok (presumably there will be commercial units) but the rest just doesn't sit well with it's surroundings. It looks like the architect/client has tried to up their game but hasn't gone balls out and as a consequence it looks a bit of a mess. It's taken the Opal template and tried to jazz it up but it can't disguise what it is - a building designed purely to maximise profit that is paying lip service to the built enviroment. I'd be devastated if Central Square was populated with buildings of it's ilk.

I'm trying to think of the economics here. Presumably that building will house approx 500 students each paying 100 - 120 per week over a 40 week period which works out at about 2m to 2.5m per annum in rent. Lets say a build cost of 15m that's a yield of between 13 and 16% which is exceptional. Office accommodation can't compete with yileds like that in provincial cities.

Even taking into consideration the ongoing service costs that is very profitable which obviously explains why there has been an explosion of these type of places. Presumably none of those students will be paying council tax but they will be using local services. To boot the local area has to put up with a shit building that is raking in huge profits for shareholders living many miles distant. The students are paying approx 400-500 per month to rent a bedroom with shared facilities which in Mcer is pretty expensive.

Other than Student Castle and potentially a few local coffee house owners/pubs etc who is winning here? You could argue that the proliferation of these places frees up traditional student area's for family homes although looking at Cathays, just as an example, I'm not sure if that is really happening. No doubt there will be pretty hefty s106 payments made but on the profit margins above a one off payment will be small potatoes.

The fact that the profit margins appear to be so good makes it all the more galling that developers are throwing up value engineered, poorly designed crap in strategic area's of cities throughout the UK. And the size of the buildings make it likely that they will not be redeveloped for many years hence. But that's the market for you...

I only said I thought it was ok, not as bad as some other student builds (but not as exciting or avant guard at Ty Pont Haearn of course)

Let's get some of those images on here

The masterplan. Note the Number 2 Central Square Office Scheme lable is pointing at Number 1 when Number 2 is actually the other side of the newly named Millennium Walkway.

Number 2 does seem to be slightly different in shape than the different drawing we saw, a bit wider maybe ? The planning permission for this is due to go in sometime this autumn, I won't be surprised to see that delayed if plot E04 at Callaghan Square (potentially for Deloitte) is started in November.



For all my whinging, they do say 'no firm plans' for the tower, so I guess it could be for anything yet.

This one gives a closer view of Millennium Way, plus a view of Number 1 and Number 2.

You need to use the scroll bar at the bottom of the second image to view either of them sorry ! Don't know what's gone on there ?!

I might not bother putting the others on !

A bit of an edit regarding Number 2.

Just read this

'The building is attracting strong tenant interest [talking about No. 1], while a planning application for a 100,000 sq ft second office building should be submitted next year'

http://www.walesonline.co.uk/business/business-news/cardiffs-new-central-square-project-8018593

That's pushing the planning application out by quite a bit and could obviously mean any time next year rather than having it any time over the next month.

Does it point to Deloitte taking the Welsh Assembly owned Callaghan Square South plot E04 I wonder ?