London Bridge emerges as a media hub

London Bridge - Brockley's most important direct connection - is emerging as one of London's leading media industry hubs. City AM reports:

Booming demand from the media industry is set to double take-up of office space along London’s Southbank this year, according to new research from estate agent Knight Frank. 

Nearly 700,000 square feet (sq ft) of office space has been acquired on the Southbank in 2013 so far. Major leasing deals this year include News Corp, which owns Dow Jones, Harper Collins and News UK (full disclosure, a client of Edelman), and broadcaster Al Jazeera (full disclosure: also a client), which rents premises in The Shard. A further 439,000 sq ft of deals are in advanced negotiations, meaning that full-year take-up should exceed 1.1m sq ft. 

With IPC and others up the road at the Blue Fin building and several media and marketing firms based in More London and Bermondsey Square, London Bridge is vying with Victoria, Kings Cross and Tottenham Court Road / Soho as the city's leading media cluster. Which is handy for the 50% of BC readers who work in the sector.

Earlier this week, Building also reported that:

Engineer WSP has been drafted in by the Shard developer Sellar to work with architect Renzo Piano on designs for two further, smaller towers in the London Bridge Quarter. The towers will house flats and be built on the site of Fielden House, by the Shard and the Place, which currently houses ground floor bars with offices above, including a Sellar office.