The Mayor of London, Boris Johnson joined the property industry’s great and good to celebrate the Topping Out of Oxford Properties and British Land’s Leadenhall Building on Tuesday 18 June.
The ceremony, attended by over 400 guests, took place on the 29th floor of the 47 floor building, offering panoramic, uninterrupted views of the London skyline. Guests heard speeches from British Land Chief Executive Chris Grigg, Oxford Properties CEO Blake Hutcheson, before Boris Johnson closed the ceremony with a characteristically esoteric and enthusiastic address.
The Topping Out attracted extensive press interest. Following the main ceremony, a private event was held for trade and national media, with journalists treated to a trip to the partially clad 47th floor. Combined with the immediate blanket distribution of the release post event and a pre-recorded interview for BBC London news, the PR approach delivered extensive coverage across prominent titles including the Evening Standard, FT, Times, City AM, EG and Architects Journal.
The strikingly designed building, opposite Lloyd’s of London in the heart of the City of London, will comprise 610,000 sq ft of office space – over 50% of which is already pre-let. It has been under construction since early 2011 and is due to complete in summer 2014.