Canary Wharf Gloom Is Just the Pangs of Rebirth
Obituaries for the east London financial district may be premature once again, if the growth of its life-sciences cluster is any indicator.
Rumors of the death of London’s Canary Wharf may be greatly exaggerated.
Photographer: DANIEL LEAL/AFP/Getty Images
In the vacated shell of a Canary Wharf building once occupied by the defunct Credit Suisse, work is underway to strengthen the floors, install advanced ventilation systems and otherwise prepare the structure for conversion into laboratories. There's life after financial services, even in spaces tailored for the grandiose needs of investment banks.
You might not think so, to judge by the mood music. A sense of doom has descended periodically over Canary Wharf ever since Olympia & York, which developed a one-time fruit-importing quay in London's Docklands into an alternative financial district, went bankrupt in the real estate bust of the early 1990s (when the area was derided as a “dead canary”). The latest wave of foreboding stems from decisions by a series of major tenants led by HSBC Holdings Plc to move back to the traditional financial center in the City of London a few miles to the west.