Projects

We developed a review and impact assessment of the activities of Camden Collective affordable workspace over the past 15 years. This included the benefits and contributions of the workspace to supporting business innovation, sector and leadership diversity, and support for start-ups, small businesses and creative industries. We also explored the impacts of affordable workspace as meanwhile use for high street vitality, and the contributions of the Collective to the strategic aims of LB Camden and the GLA.

PRD supported Guy’s & St Thomas’ (GSTT) on their 15-year, £4bn regeneration of its Westminster Bridge and London Bridge campuses. Pre-Covid, PRD worked alongside GSTT in their offices to provide on-demand advice on all property-related matters.

Recent work has included developing proposals for partnerships with key stakeholders and landowners; providing evidence and information to generate support from the governance teams; and identifying and working up proposals for assets that will allow assist with decanting in the short term and further capitalise on regeneration uplift in the long term.

PRD has developed a range of viability models to guide the work programme. We have also helped soft-market test ideas with developers, investors and occupiers, particularly in the MedTech and life sciences sectors, and have managed external consultants on behalf of GSTT to ensure that they receive the best advice possible.

Imperial College London’s White City estate is a world-class research campus located near a major London hub for media, leisure, retail, and nightlife. Imperial commissioned PRD to assess the amenities and public realm at the White City campus and make the case for new placemaking initiatives befitting of one of the most innovative universities in the world.

PRD reviewed the existing ‘landscape’ and asset base at White City, covering aspects such as public realm and connectivity, amenities such as eating places and public events, business/networking opportunities, and the university’s ties to surrounding communities. We engaged the Imperial board, development team, and on-site students, researchers, and incubator enterprises to gather wide-ranging views on what works well about the campus and what could be improved—from business support and networking opportunities to the campus food and beverage offer.

Our final report and presentation to Imperial included examples of inspirational, replicable placemaking interventions from leading research hubs in other cities; the cost of inaction; and a call to establish Imperial White City as an Innovation District with next steps to achieve this.

Our ongoing partnership with Redo is a platform to help local authorities create asset value strategies by using redundant buildings for social good, particularly to support co-working, start-up and scale-up businesses, and local enterprise.

Redo is the consulting arm of 3space, an affordable/flexible workspace provider. Their model for every space let at an affordable rate, another is given at peppercorn rent, while PRD brings expertise on innovative asset strategies and monitoring success once a space is under operation.

Together, we have delivered and monitored ongoing impact of projects in Brixton, Lancaster, Kensal, and Old Oak & Park Royal.

The Albany is a community arts centre and cultural hub in Deptford that exists to platform local artists and drive creative participation in southeast London. They identified an opportunity to grow their revenue streams and impact with physical improvements to the building, made possible through residential development above the theatre. The Albany looked to secure £8m funding from the GLA to partially support capital improvements, and required an assessment of the economic and social impacts to support their case.

We worked closely with The Albany team and their development partner Stories to understand how changes to the building would affect operations, space users, and the capacity to further support artist development and launching both careers and start-up creative and community organisations. We assessed qualitative and quantitative impacts to provide a holistic picture from financial benefits for the organisation to long-term community development support, and showed how these supported the priorities and policies of the Cultural Strategy for London.

Our Impact Assessment was submitted to the GLA as part of the business case for capital funding. It showed that by revolutionising their business model through better and more efficient use of their building, the Albany could become more sustainable and create additional artistic and community activity, and become a model for balancing commercial activity with locally-responsive support for creatives and communities.

Developer Reef commissioned PRD to develop a social value strategy for Tribeca, a mixed-use development near Kings Cross containing residential, office and retail uses.

PRD developed a thorough evidence base of the local area and engaged with local community organisations to understand the needs and challenges facing the local community.

Through a series of workshops with Reef, we identified levers they could use to deliver social value, on-site and off-site, and recommendations for areas of action.

The final output was a report laying out how Reef could use its levers of Space, Funding and a Social Value Charter to create positive impact within the themes of Community Wellbeing, Pathways to Opportunity, and Inclusive Resilience.

Following the work, Reef invited PRD to sit on Tribeca’s ESG board and to help oversee the implementation of the social value strategy.

PRD, alongside Augarde & Partners, were commissioned by LB Hackney to report on the social impact delivered to date at Trowbridge Gardens. Trowbridge Gardens was an underused council asset in Hackney Wick, transformed in 2019 into an affordable workspace and community space operated by Arbeit Studios. The purpose of the study was to understand the social and economic impact of the project, exploring how investment by the council in the form of discounted rent has unlocked wide-ranging impact for the local business and residential communities.

We undertook a needs assessment of the area and used this, alongside findings from engagement with Arbeit and site tenants and users, to inform a bespoke social impact framework for Trowbridge Gardens. The research uncovered that the site was having a much wider impact than was originally conceived, with impact themes ranging from local business resilience, supporting employment and skills, community cohesion and improving access to nature. The final report reported a mixture of quantitative and qualitative data to tell the impact story, and can be read on Arbeit’s website.

PRD is currently part of an international team conducting a five-year longitudinal study into the impacts of placemaking and public realm investment at Wilton Park, a major regeneration project in Dublin.

IPUT Real Estate is Dublin’s largest commercial real estate developer – a long-term investor in the built environment with a track record of almost 60 years of responsible investment in Ireland. In redeveloping its Wilton Park estate, which includes a 650,000 ft² (60,387 m²) mixed use scheme and upgrades to a one-acre (0.405 ha) city park, IPUT is seeking to understand and measure the social, cultural, economic, and environmental impact of investments at Wilton Park over a five-year period. While construction is due to complete in early 2024, a comprehensive programme of placemaking has been underway at the site since 2021, including providing free artists’ workspace, outdoor events, and public art installations.

PRD is working in collaboration with Hassell, an international architecture, design, and research practice, and Gehl, people-centred urban design specialists. The PRD team is supporting across the project, conducting both engagement (a mix of workshops, on-site perception surveys, and stakeholder interviews) and technical work to measure impact. The project team developed 73 bespoke metrics across 18 measurement areas to track impact. A yearly research report detailing how the development is progressing against these metrics will be published every Autumn. Year one of the research is now complete and the research report can be downloaded from IPUT’s website.

Worcester Shrub Hill Station is a Grade-II listed building nearing dereliction through lack of investment. The station surroundings are similarly disinvested and poorly signposted to the nearby city centre. Early business cases and cost-benefit ratios for redeveloping the station did not support investment.

PRD is working on a long-term project with Worcestershire County Council to develop a feasible strategy for station investment and development. Following extensive viability testing, socioeconomic profiling, visioning workshops, and reviewing funding and land value capture models, we advised WCC that unlocking wider regeneration around the station and land value capture would make investment viable.

This has enabled WCC to buy 4.5 hectares of land around the station with a view to catalysing 1000 homes, 7000 jobs, and 102,000 m² of new commercial space for Shrub Hill over the next 30 years, with flexibility built in so development can respond to market changes. WCC themselves will act as an anchor tenant, moving from an out-of-town office park back to the heart of the city and repurposing an underused asset.

We are now supporting WCC and Worcester City Council to form a development plan for the 4.5 ha plus surrounding sites under other ownership. This involves identifying reusable assets, deliverable parcels throughout the site, phasing options, and potential partners.