Private backers pledge £45m towards Olympicopolis project
Project looking to raise total of £180m in private funding
The mayor of London, Boris Johnson, announced yesterday that private backers have pledged an initial £45m towards the Olympicopolis project at Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park.
The funds were raised through the Foundation for FutureLondon, an organisation set up to generate philanthropic support for the project, and which aims to raise a total of £180m in private money.
This is in addition to the £141m committed to the project by the Treasury.
Olympicopolis will house branches of the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A), the University of the Arts London, Sadler’s Wells and the University College London (UCL). The project’s managers have also held discussions with the Smithsonian Institute in Washington DC in the US over a potential partnership agreement.
Funds from residential land sales and contributions from the Greater London Authority will also go towards the estimated £850m price tag of the development. UCL is contributing £270m to the first phase of UCL East and will also be seeking philanthropic support for the project.
Martin Roth, the director of the V&A said: “The V&A’s origins lie in ‘Albertopolis’, the world-renowned scientific and cultural quarter in South Kensington. In being a founding partner of ‘Olympicopolis’, we are part of an unmissable opportunity to create the 21st century equivalent in the heart of east London’s thriving network of creative industries.”
William Castell, the chairman of the Foundation for FutureLondon, said: “Our task is to build on the unparalleled success of the 2012 Games to create a world class 21st century city in Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park.
“Olympicopolis is a project with enormous scale, vision and ambition. It is investing over £1bn to deliver access to the very best in education, technology and the arts, for the people of east London, enhancing the incredible cultural life already there.”
Building work on the Stratford Waterfront site is due to start in 2018 and it is due to be fully open to the public in 2022.
The funds were raised through the Foundation for FutureLondon, an organisation set up to generate philanthropic support for the project, and which aims to raise a total of £180m in private money.
This is in addition to the £141m committed to the project by the Treasury.
Olympicopolis will house branches of the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A), the University of the Arts London, Sadler’s Wells and the University College London (UCL). The project’s managers have also held discussions with the Smithsonian Institute in Washington DC in the US over a potential partnership agreement.
Funds from residential land sales and contributions from the Greater London Authority will also go towards the estimated £850m price tag of the development. UCL is contributing £270m to the first phase of UCL East and will also be seeking philanthropic support for the project.
Martin Roth, the director of the V&A said: “The V&A’s origins lie in ‘Albertopolis’, the world-renowned scientific and cultural quarter in South Kensington. In being a founding partner of ‘Olympicopolis’, we are part of an unmissable opportunity to create the 21st century equivalent in the heart of east London’s thriving network of creative industries.”
William Castell, the chairman of the Foundation for FutureLondon, said: “Our task is to build on the unparalleled success of the 2012 Games to create a world class 21st century city in Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park.
“Olympicopolis is a project with enormous scale, vision and ambition. It is investing over £1bn to deliver access to the very best in education, technology and the arts, for the people of east London, enhancing the incredible cultural life already there.”
Building work on the Stratford Waterfront site is due to start in 2018 and it is due to be fully open to the public in 2022.