Qatar based television broadcaster Al Jazeera is poised to become the first commercial tenant of the Shard. The news came just days after the announcement that Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp, will take up the whole of the Shard’s sister building, The Place.
The deal, which is the biggest one completed in London in the past eight years, follows several months of speculation that the owners have been struggling to find tenants.
Irvine Sellar, chairman of Sellar Property Group, said that Al Jazeera and a number of unnamed tenants are already fitting out floors in the building.
He stated, “The Shard will be fully leased by the end of 2014 in accordance with our business plan.”
The three restaurants situated on the 31st-33rd floors are already welcoming guests, and the city’s first Shangri-La hotel will open in the autumn. The 12 apartments located at the summit of the tower will be ready to market once the hotel is fully open.
Mr. Sellar said, “If you take the News Corporation brands and add Shangri-La, Al Jazeera and the restaurants…what a list of brands.”
He went on to say that by the end of 2014 there will be 12,500 people permanently employed in the two buildings and approximately one million people a year will be visiting the viewing gallery.
This will be the “first vertical town in Europe,” Sellar added.
Al Jazeera has taken 28,000 sq ft on a single floor for, what will become, its flagship studio. The broadcaster’s current London newsroom is in Knightsbridge.
