It has been 20 years in the making, but the Lewisham Gateway project has finally been completed – with a branch of Pret a Manger moving into the development.
Building work began more than a decade ago, with roads and rivers rerouted as the two phases of the project were built.
The final pedestrian pathways opened up in the past few days, allowing access to the blocks of up to 30 storeys that now dominate the town centre.
The whole scheme has been contentious – the first phase was nominated for architecture’s Carbuncle Cup while Joani Reid, a former local councillor and now the Labour MP for East Kilbride & Strathaven, branded its design an “architectural circus”. Building Design likened it to “four upturned middle fingers”.
Work on the second phase was delayed by a year after a contractor quit the job.
No businesses have yet moved into the new phase, but Pret a Manager has opened in an adjacent block in the first phase.
A Sainsbury’s Local with a cash machine is likely to be the first store to open in the new phase, having won planning permission, and the Chinese and Japanese store Kiki & Miumiu is hoping to follow, according to Lewisham planning documents.
Lewisham Council picked the developer Muse to redevelop the site in 2004 in an attempt to rejoin Lewisham station to the town centre, solving a problem created less than a decade beforehand.
Before the Docklands Light Railway arrived in the Nineties, a number of shops and pubs were demolished, with a large roundabout replacing a road junction known as the Obelisk.
With the new development the road network has been reworked again, and the council hopes that it will become easier for people to walk from the station, through Lewisham Gateway and to the shopping centre – which itself is set to be knocked down and replaced with 1,700 homes.
The 530 flats – 20 per cent let at “London living rent”, where rent is set at one third of average local income – and 119 co-living spaces are being marketed as The Filigree. The first phase contains 362 rented homes.
Space for a nine-storey cinema was also built, although the operator due to occupy the site, Empire, went into administration last year. Muse’s press office did not respond to an email asking about the future of the cinema, although it does appear on a fingerpost sign in the development.
Chris Coxall, the project director for Muse, said last month: ““From the outset, we were determined to ensure that this was more than just a regeneration project, but a defining moment in the history of Lewisham.”
“By uniting around a shared vision and goals with our partners and the community, we have come together to overcome critical challenges and realise this long-term, transformative change.”
“Lewisham Gateway is testament to the power of public-private partnership working. It has delivered against our ambition to bring people and place together, an ambition which was set over 20 years ago.”
Brenda Dacres, Lewisham’s elected mayor, said the scheme had delivered “much-needed housing for Lewisham and London, with community and social infrastructure, as well as opportunities for jobs and skills for local people”.
“We have listened to our communities and our partners throughout this two-decades-long journey, and I am thrilled that with its completion, the benefits of Lewisham Gateway will be felt for generations to come,” she said.
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