Chiswick Business Park is a

business park A business park or office park is a designated area of land in which many office buildings are grouped together. These types of developments are often located in suburban areas where land and building costs are more affordable, and are typically ...

Gunnersbury Gunnersbury is an area of West London, England. Toponymy The name "Gunnersbury" means "Manor house of a woman called Gunnhildr", and is from an old Scandinavian personal name + Middle English -''bury'', manor or manor house. Development Gunne ...

West London West London is the western part of London, England, north of the River Thames, west of the City of London, and extending to the Greater London boundary. The term is used to differentiate the area from the other parts of London: North London ...

, fronting on to

Chiswick High Road Chiswick High Road is the principal shopping and dining street of Chiswick, a district in the west of London. It was part of the main Roman road running west out of London, and remained the main road until the 1950s when the A4 was built across ...

History

Chiswick Business Park lake and landscaping

Bus maintenance site

The land on which the Chiswick Business Park was built had been owned by the

Rothschild family The Rothschild family ( , ) is a wealthy Ashkenazi Jewish family originally from Frankfurt that rose to prominence with Mayer Amschel Rothschild (1744–1812), a court factor to the German Landgraves of Hesse-Kassel in the Free City of F ...

and planted as

orchard An orchard is an intentional plantation of trees or shrubs that is maintained for food production. Orchards comprise fruit- or nut-producing trees which are generally grown for commercial production. Orchards are also sometimes a feature of larg ...

s in the 19th century. In 1921, the

London General Omnibus Company The London General Omnibus Company or LGOC, was the principal bus operator in London between 1855 and 1933. It was also, for a short period between 1909 and 1912, a motor bus manufacturer. Overview The London General Omnibus Company was fou ...

opened a 33-acre bus maintenance facility on a site bounded by

to the south, the

North London line The North London line (NLL) is a railway line which passes through the inner suburbs of west, north-west, north, and east London, England between Richmond in the south-west and Stratford in the east, avoiding central London. Its route is a rou ...

to the east and the

Piccadilly line The Piccadilly line is a deep-level London Underground line running from the north to the west of London. It has two branches, which split at Acton Town, and serves 53 stations. The line serves Heathrow Airport, and some of its stations are n ...

to the north. At its peak it employed 3,500 men, by 1985 it was down to 700. It was closed by

London Regional Transport London Regional Transport (LRT) was the organisation responsible for most of the public transport network in London, England, between 1984 and 2000. In common with all London transport authorities from 1933 to 2000, the public name and operatio ...

in 1990.

Design and construction

In 1990–1991, architects Terry Farrell & Partners designed a master plan for a Stanhope and Trafalgar House consortium for the site with buildings designed by

Foster Associates Foster + Partners is a British architectural, engineering, and integrated design practice founded in 1967 as Foster Associates by Norman Foster. It is the largest architectural firm in the UK with over 1,500 employees in 13 studios worldwide. ...

and

Peter Foggo Peter Foggo (1930-1993) was a British architect, who headed the team at Arup Associates which designed the first phase of development at London's Broadgate in the 1980s. Foggo joined the Ove Arup Building Group in 1959, and became a partner in th ...

around the main piazza, and others by

Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners Rogers may refer to: Places Canada *Rogers Pass (British Columbia) * Rogers Island (Nunavut) United States * Rogers, Arkansas, a city * Rogers, alternate name of Muroc, California, a former settlement * Rogers, Indiana, an unincorporated communit ...

and

ABK Architects __NOTOC__ ABK Architects (previously Ahrends, Burton and Koralek) is a British architectural practice. It was founded in 1961 by Peter Ahrends (born 1933, Berlin, Germany), Richard Burton (born 1933 in London, United Kingdom, died 2017), and Paul ...

around a smaller square to one side.Chiswick Park
Stanhope Outline planning permission was granted in 1991 for 11 buildings to be built. In 1996,

Kværner Kværner was a Norwegian engineering and construction services company that existed between 1853 and 2005. In 2004, it was amalgamated to the newly formed subsidiary of Aker ASA - Aker Kværner, which was renamed Aker Solutions on 3 April 2008 ...

took ownership of the site, selling it in 1999 to the Chiswick Park Unit Trust led by

Schroders Schroders plc is a British multinational asset management company, founded in 1804. The company employs over 5,000 people worldwide in 32 locations around Europe, America, Asia, Africa and the Middle East. Headquartered in the City of London, it ...

and Aberdeen Property Investors with Stanhope as development manager. Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners was commissioned to prepare a new master plan. The first building was completed at the Chiswick High Road end in December 2000 with a further 11 built in stages, the last being completed in September 2015. Buildings range in height from four to twelve floors. The Chiswick Park Unit Trust sold the park to the

Blackstone Group Blackstone Inc. is an American alternative investment management company based in New York City. Blackstone's private equity business has been one of the largest investors in leveraged buyouts in the last three decades, while its real estate b ...

in January 2011. Blackstone sold the property to

China Investment Corporation China Investment Corporation (CIC) (Chinese: 中国投资有限责任公司; pinyin: ''zhōngguó tóuzī yǒuxiàn zérèn gōngsī'') is a sovereign wealth fund that manages part of the People's Republic of China's foreign exchange reserves. C ...

in January 2014. Blackstone retained ownership of building 7, until selling it in February 2020 to Stanhope, while building 8 is owned by

Abrdn Abrdn plc (stylised as ‘abrdn’, disemvoweling of "Aberdeen"), formerly Standard Life Aberdeen plc, is a United Kingdom-based global investment company headquartered in Edinburgh, Scotland. It is listed on the London Stock Exchange and is a ...

Footbridge

Chiswick Park Footbridge, to the north of the

Gunnersbury Triangle Nature Reserve Gunnersbury is an area of West London, England. Toponymy The name "Gunnersbury" means "Manor house of a woman called Gunnhildr", and is from an old Scandinavian personal name + Middle English -''bury'', manor or manor house. Development Gunne ...

, was opened in January 2019 to connect the business park with

Chiswick Park tube station Chiswick Park is a London Underground station in the Acton Green district of Chiswick in West London. The station is served by the District line and is between Turnham Green and Acton Town stations. It is located at the junction of Bollo Lane a ...

Reception

The Buildings of England ''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things already mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The'' is the m ...

'' calls the architectural lineup "a galaxy of famous names", contrasting the park's coherent layout with the unplanned office blocks that had "sprouted up haphazardly" in the rest of

Tenants

Tenants in 2021 include

CBS CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS, the abbreviation of its former legal name Columbia Broadcasting System, is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainm ...

Danone Danone S.A. () is a French multinational corporation, multinational food-products corporation based in Paris. It was founded in Barcelona, Spain. It is listed on Euronext Paris where it is a component of the CAC 40 stock market index. Some of t ...

Ericsson (lit. "Telephone Stock Company of LM Ericsson"), commonly known as Ericsson, is a Swedish multinational networking and telecommunications company headquartered in Stockholm. The company sells infrastructure, software, and services in informat ...

Foxtons Foxtons Group plc is a British estate agency company dealing with both lettings and sales. It is listed on the London Stock Exchange. History Foxtons was founded by Jon Hunt in 1981 in Notting Hill, London, as a two-person estate agency. 200 ...

IMG img or IMG is an abbreviation for image. img or IMG may also refer to: * IMG (company), global sports and media business headquartered in New York City but with its main offices in Cleveland, originally known as the "International Management Group ...

, Otis,

Paramount Pictures Paramount Pictures Corporation is an American film and television production company, production and Distribution (marketing), distribution company and the main namesake division of Paramount Global (formerly ViacomCBS). It is the fifth-oldes ...

PepsiCo PepsiCo, Inc. is an American multinational food, snack, and beverage corporation headquartered in Harrison, New York, in the hamlet of Purchase. PepsiCo's business encompasses all aspects of the food and beverage market. It oversees the manuf ...

Seadrill Seadrill is a deepwater drilling contractor for the petroleum industry. It is incorporated in Bermuda for tax purposes and managed from London and Houston The company operates semi-submersible platforms, jackup rigs and drillships. History Seadri ...

Singapore Airlines Singapore Airlines (abbreviation: SIA) is the flag carrier airline of the Republic of Singapore with its Airline hub, hub located at Singapore Changi Airport. The airline is notable for highlighting the Singapore Girl as its central figure in ...

Starbucks Starbucks Corporation is an American multinational chain of coffeehouses and roastery reserves headquartered in Seattle, Washington. It is the world's largest coffeehouse chain. As of November 2021, the company had 33,833 stores in 80 c ...

Tullow Oil Tullow Oil plc is a multinational oil and gas exploration company founded in Tullow, Ireland, with its headquarters in London, United Kingdom. The company is listed on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE 250 Index. His ...

and

United International Pictures United International Pictures (UIP) is a joint venture of Paramount Pictures and Universal Pictures that distributes their films outside the United States and Canada. UIP also had international distribution rights to certain Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer an ...

Richmond, The American International University in London Richmond American University London is a private university in London, United Kingdom. Richmond was founded in 1972,by British educator Cyril Taylor. The university awards US degrees from the American state of Delaware, where Richmond is accr ...

announced they would be moving into the business park in September 2022.

References

External links

{{Chiswick, state=collapsed Buildings and structures in Chiswick China Investment Corporation Information technology company headquarters in the United Kingdom London Borough of Hounslow Mass media company headquarters in the United Kingdom