Tom Ryan behind new London skyscraper

Canary Wharf is about to get some competition with Irish developer Tom Ryan planning to build a £850mn, 74-storey skyscraper on a site he has just bought for £100m.

The building will be the tallest in London for a residential build and will be located in the business district to the east of the City of London.

The tower will be 242m or 7m higher than Canary Wharf’s tallest office building, according to reports in the Financial Times.

In what is clearly more evidence of London’s booming business market, the scheme is that latest in a line of high rise developments across the capital.

However, while Mr Ryan already has permission to build a mixed used scheme containing offices and shops he will have to receive permission from Tower Hamlets council to do so before he gets the green light to go ahead.

The site, which sits on Canary Wharf’s north-west corner, was sold by Commercial Estates Group, which had permission to build a 242 metre tall building containing offices, homes and a hotel called the Columbus Tower. It put the plans under review in 2011 citing the changing economic climate.

Ryan Corporation (UK) Limited said the 75-storey tower would be renamed the Herstmere, and would contain more than 500,000 square feet of luxury residential space or 714 homes.

It expects the site to be worth more than £850m upon its 2018 completion.

“We’re at a moment in time when residential is something that is very popular in London and we came across a project which we thought was incredibly exciting and in an area where we think has a lot of growth,” Richard Berridge, chief operating officer for Ryan Corporation, told Reuters.

The privately-held, London-based company is headed by Irish property investor Thomas Ryan. Source: The Irish Independent.