Time was, when you went along Hammersmith Road you would be greeted by a scruffy, dowdy, sprawling building that looked empty, save for posters outside proclaiming a frankly unexciting show. Ideal Home, early Christmas shopping, Wellbeing Live — these and more filled Olympia. The only one that caused a stir, no pun intended, was Erotica.
Everything about Olympia was dull, dull, dull. It seemed wrong and out of step with current London, from a different age. The doors were spread out, far apart, small, lost at the bottom of a featureless, imposing edifice. There were no kicking restaurants and bars — there was more life in the old-style Frank’s Sandwich Bar across the road.
Yet Olympia once smacked of grandeur and endeavour. Bold and dashing, it hosted Britain’s first aviation show. The inside was once given over to a replica of Venice, complete with canals and gondolas. Those glory days were long gone.
Today, something genuinely spectacular has risen from the torpor. Olympia is alive again, lifted by vaulting steel and glass, given a makeover, courtesy of designers Thomas Heatherwick and SPPARC.
This 21st-century Olympia, which reopened this month, houses two hotels, the biggest permanent theatre — with 1,575 seats — to open in London since the National Theatre exactly 50 years ago, a music venue otherwise known as the British Airways ARC, lots of glossy retail, great offices and workspaces, the smart Wetherby Pembridge fee-paying school and yes, hot restaurants and bars. It’s a radical transformation, akin to that of Battersea Power Station, say, in taking the apparently hopeless and lifeless, giving it CPR and making the heart beat again.
Such an overhaul does not come cheap. The 1886 National Agricultural Hall — think the fresh produce show in a village hall except much, much bigger — later renamed Olympia, was acquired for £296 million in 2017. The purchaser was a consortium led by Deutsche Finance and Yoo Capital. The former speaks for itself, while the latter is a spin-off from Yoo, founded by John Hitchcox and Philippe Starck, the designer. Run by Hitchcox, Yoo Capital boasts of being “a real estate firm that uncovers hidden gems which have been under-managed or overlooked”. You can say that again where Olympia is concerned.
The numbers climb steeply from there. In all, the scheme has cost £1.3 billion. While it is a bit of a stretch to hail it — as the publicity does — as “one of the most ambitious regeneration projects in the world” (the world, come on), there is no doubting the intent.
They could have gone down a single-income stream route, devoting the place entirely to trade fairs and shows to give Excel a run for its money. Or, they could have turned it all over to shopping and dining and schmoozing, or totally to offices, or given the concert hall a far greater capacity.
On the latter, one senior music industry insider lamented they had not gone large. He argued that the new Olympia will hold 3,800, a similar size to the nearby Hammersmith Apollo, but below the Royal Albert Hall (5,900) and Brixton Academy (5,000). What London needs, he said, is a centrally located space to match Wembley Arena (12,500) and Alexandra Palace (10,250). Plumping for solo carried extra risk. The reason why Olympia felt forlorn at night was because those exhibitions (which can still remain, except there will be more of them and they will likely be buzzier) and the fairs were daytime events; at night there was no one there. This way, mixed use, they hope to get a constant through-put of people during the day and evening, in the week and at weekends. Key in the cocktail is the amount of space dedicated to offices. It’s a whopping 550,000 square feet, 40 per cent of which has already been let. They have one major coup under their belt — the Premier League has committed to 73,000 square feet for its in-house content and broadcast headquarters.
The private school — which focuses on the sports and arts, as well as core subjects — was a clever stroke. Choosing two hotels that complement each other — Hyatt and citizenM — was also calculating. Development of hotel rooms continues to soar, with west London and ease of access to Heathrow high on the list.
The 14-acre complex (not forgetting the wraparound indoor balcony and the roof terrace) is what the Olympia PR machine terms “one commercial ecosystem” or “One Olympia”. That over-used word, creativity, is much emphasised, via the private school as well as a partnership with the BRIT School, which will involve its emerging stars performing at Olympia.
Even so, the developers are aiming skywards. They are looking to attract 3.5 million visitors a year to the hotels, performance and exhibition venues alone. They expect those people to generate an annual spend of £464 million. Across the whole location, the backers are targeting an annual footfall of 10 million.
Analysis by economic consultancy firm Volterra predicts Olympia’s redevelopment will inject more than £600 million into the UK economy each year compared with the old Olympia’s £14 million. The folks going to the revamped exhibition and conference halls are expected to devote £256 million to food, with total expenditure, including their accommodation, travel and other costs, reaching £1.3 billion. That is good news, too, for the surrounding area’s businesses. Jobs-wise, the developers are heralding 7,000 direct posts, a 22 per cent increase from the previous incarnation. On top of that, Olympia will support another 2,000 workers in London and elsewhere, via its supply chain. It is calculated that those working at Olympia will be spending £18 million a year locally — Frank’s can look forward to a lift in trade.
The forecasts are compelling, the vision is pretty enough, but whether it yields the sort of return to make that level of investment worthwhile is still open to chance. They have laboured hard to make Olympia sexy and enticing but there is nothing they can do about the location, particularly its poor public transport links. It is served by the District Line — not London’s finest — and the station is only open at weekends and when events are on. Otherwise, it’s the Overground, bus, cab or walk. Despite the money spent and the reopening, TfL has no plans to increase the weekday Underground service.
The developers claim, too, that Olympia has no straight competition. “Olympia isn’t competing with what already exists in London — it’s creating something London doesn’t yet have. Its scale and integrated mix — live music, theatre, hotels, dining, offices and public realm all under one roof — sets a new benchmark for what a truly multi-layered ecosystem can be.”
That may be so, but each of Olympia’s components is battling with businesses in that field — the theatre with the West End, the hotels up against the rest, the restaurants head-to-head with those already existing and yet to open. Similarly, the live venues, offices and conferences. There is nothing unique about Olympia’s parts. That makes them prone to the headwinds which beset the others and expenditure of this magnitude a colossal gamble, whatever they say.
For sheer bravado and chutzpah, Olympia deserves to succeed. As an act of faith in London, it merits our applause and custom.
