With friendlier conversion rates in this post-Brexit landscape, there’s never been a better time for foreign investors looking at long-term buys to jump into the London property market.

Amongst the many developments in up-and-coming London suburbs, The Broadway in Westminster, is a standout. Apart from leveraging luxury living in a centralised location, surrounded by key London heritage sites — Buckingham Palace, Westminster Abbey, St James Park and the Big Ben all within view from the residential floors, — The Broadway is a mixed-use residential development with commercial and office space that aims to offers future residents a variety of conveniences and services right at their doorstep.

Slated for completion at the end of 2021, The Broadway is to be built on a diamond-shaped parcel of land that was formerly the headquarters of the Metropolitan Police Service. Each of the six towers will bear one of three distinctive exterior designs, inspired in part by some of the most precious diamonds in the world: the Sancy, the Paragon and the Cullinan. On-site recreation, fitness and spa amenities enable residents to recharge after a long week of metropolitan city activities, including a private, residents-only garden space on the fourth floor levels of each building.

The development is spearheaded by Abu Dhabi Financial Group and real-estate developers, Northacre London. The latter is renowned for their impressive portfolio of heritage-significant residential property around London, carefully revitalised for modern usage and new ownership with quality materials, craftsmanship and planning. The Broadway, however, is Northacre’s second brand new development, and its first mixed-use project. Niccolò Barattieri di San Pietro, chief executive officer of Northacre explains: “We’re trying to create a “Westminster Cool” culture,” and turn the area into “a vibrant new quarter in this very central part of town.”

We spoke to Niccolò, who was recently in Singapore to promote The Broadway, for more on what to expect from the new development.

LuxuoMY: How is The Broadway different from your previous developments?
Niccolò: This is Northacre’s first brand new development of large scale. The other one we worked on was Vicarage Gate House, which has 13, very high-end apartments — a new-build development that we finished in 2016. This is the first mixed-used scheme that we’ve ever done, and i think it is the first really high-end mixed used, residentially-led development in Central London.

It’s located on the old site of Scotland Yard. Everything has been knocked down. We will create a new street in the middle (of the site). There are two podiums each on one side of the street, and on top of each podium are three towers. Retail is on the ground floor, and there are three levels of offices.

There is a garden in the middle for residents. The residential units sit above that, and hence the views are the most important part of this development. The majority of the apartments here have incredible views.

There are four world heritage sites around The Broadway: Buckingham Palace, Westminster Abbey, Big Ben and Parliament. You’re surrounded by the historical fabric of the city.

LuxuoMY: Tell us more about the design theme of The Broadway.
Niccolò: As you can see from the model scale, these are diamond shaped windows. It’s all designed around the theme of diamonds. From the inside, you can see that the windows are floor to ceiling height to create those fantastic framed views. The windows do a lot of the talking for the development, especially because the views are so iconic that we wanted to frame them in a way that was slightly different. If you want views that go all the way around, our largest penthouse will give you 360 degree views from the 37 windows.

LuxuoMY: How does Northacre typically decide which locations are worth building on?
Niccolò: We have our favourite parts of town. Ones we feel are slightly undervalued, but still super central because our customers don’t want to travel very far. But they will travel slightly out of their comfort zone if you create something really special, as indicated by our previous developments. And their value has been going up ever since. They also have to have something special around them, like overlooking a park, incredible views, or something else.

LuxuoMY: Who is your target market? Do you think there will be interest from the Malaysian market?
Niccolò: We are not looking at it from a nationality standpoint. The target market have two or three things in common. The first is that they love London, and they want to buy an apartment because they see themselves based there in the long term — be it to live, to come visit or for their children. Second, they’re looking for a vibrant destination with a great location that gives them everything on their doorstep. And three,

our customers are world travellers, so they understand what quality is when they see it.

We are fairly convinced that there will be quite a bit of interest from Southeast Asia in general. The average size of The Broadway’s apartments is smaller than our other developments, about 1,200 sq ft. Historically, the SEA market has preferred slightly smaller apartments. However, what we’re seeing now is that this part of the continent is starting to graduate to buying more expensive units. Not because they are bigger, but because they are going more towards the higher end of quality. We feel we are fantastically positioned to deliver a product that caters to the needs of this market.

LuxuoMY: What are some London property trends that you foresee might be prevalent in the next few years?
Niccolò: People want to feel like they are living in the city they are living in. This sounds pretty basic, but what you’re seeing is that people are shying away from developments that are several miles big, where if you’re plonked in the middle you could be anywhere, because all the buildings are new. They want to be in iconic parts of town, where you can just walk out and all around you is central London. It enables them to live the lifestyle that they are looking for, and services are increasingly important.

Also, less is more in the sense that until now, I think developers in general feel that they have to put in as much as possible into apartments. The wallpaper, wooded panels everywhere and so on. What we’re seeing is that buyers want to put their own personality into these developments. We love white walls. We’re creating a gallery space for residents to display their art pieces; their neighbour is probably not gonna have the same thing as them. We deliver developments with fewer materials but of super high quality. Hopefully you will agree that we’re putting up beautiful homes and great investments for our customers at the end.

For more on The Broadway, visit their website.