White City Place

White City Place is a collection of six buildings occupying a 17-acre site off Wood Lane in White City, West London, bordered by South Africa Road, Dorando Close and the A40 Westway. The site is a short distance along Wood Lane from Television Centre. All formerly properties of the BBC, only two buildings – Broadcast Centre and the Lighthouse – are currently occupied by BBC staff.

White City Place was formerly known as BBC Media Village until the BBC sold the site in 2015 and it was renamed by new owners Stanhope and Mitsui Fudosan.[1] Together with Television Centre, it is sometimes known in the broadcasting industry by the metonym "W12", after its W12 postcode.[2]

BBC White City

The first building on the site, BBC White City, was designed by architects Scott Brownrigg & Turner and was opened in 1990. Built on the site of the 1908 Franco-British Exhibition, BBC White City was constructed on the location of the former White City Stadium (The Great Stadium) used for the 1908 Summer Olympics. The stadium was demolished in 1985 and parts of the Olympic swimming pool were discovered when the foundations of the new building were laid.[3]

The building was originally intended to be a new home for BBC Radio, replacing Broadcasting House.[4] This plan was scrapped and the building instead became office space with fifty edit suites, various television production teams, the digital switchover team, BBC Academy, the Children in Need charity and parts of operations and HR, as well as a large restaurant.[5]

It housed most of the BBC's current affairs and factual and learning programmes, such as Panorama, Top Gear (where it featured in a series 10

Media Village

Development

Construction of the second phase of the development began in September 2001 and the site was officially opened in May 2004 and was known as the Media Village. It consists of five further buildings in addition to White City One – Media Centre, Broadcast Centre, Energy Centre, Garden House and the Lighthouse.[8] The buildings were designed by Allies and Morrison Architects and Buro Happold and built by Bovis Lend Lease. In addition to BBC offices, the site included a post office, a Tesco Express, a Starbucks, a Davy's wine bar and several other retail outlets, many of which have now been replaced.[9][8] To pay for construction costs, the BBC signed a 30-year deal with Land Securities Trillium, Britain's largest property developer.

Under new owners Stanhope and Mitsui Fudosan, the site has been renamed White City Place and an extensive refurbishment and refitting of the vacated properties on the site has taken place.[1][14] The former Media Centre was renamed to The MediaWorks[24] and a significant renovation of White City One, renamed to The WestWorks, changed its main entrance and introduced a row of shops facing the piazza.[25]

External links

References

John Plunkett. BBC move continues after £87m deal for Media Village The Guardian, 5 June 2015, retrieved 24 July 2015^
BBC - Press Office - London Open House Weekend 2003 www.bbc.co.uk^
BBC buildings

Occupants

In 2004, it was intended that the Garden House and Lighthouse would be leased by independent production companies working with the BBC.[9]

The Media Centre was the global headquarters for the BBC's for-profit publishing subsidiary BBC Worldwide from 2008 until 2015, when it moved into the former BBC News annex of Television Centre.[14][15] Media Centre also housed non-broadcast divisions of the BBC which had been moved from central London to make way for the redevelopment of Broadcasting House.[14] Media Centre was used for broadcasts of Watchdog and Rogue Traders as well as a filming location for The Thick of It.[14]

Some BBC Television-making departments were located in Media Centre following the vacating of Television Centre in 2013 including Comedy, Entertainment & Events and Factual. The BBC then left Media Centre and Garden House, with staff relocated to Broadcast Centre, Broadcasting House, Grafton House and some to MediaCityUK in Salford. Media Centre and Garden House closed on 10 July 2015 following the sale to Stanhope and Mitsui Fudosan. It was stated that the BBC received £87 million for the sale.[16]

At the time of its closure in July 2015, Garden House was mainly occupied by Atos and associated sub-contractors' teams following the sale of BBC Technology to Siemens in 2004.[14]

Broadcast Centre continued to house BBC Design & Engineering staff, BBC Global News, BBC Studios production staff and Marketing and Audiences staff until 2020. The majority of the building is now leased to ITV following the closure of The London Studios.[17]

Red Bee Media broadcasts BBC One, BBC Two, BBC News, Channel 4, Channel 5, BT Sport from Broadcast Centre.

The Energy Centre provides services to the entire site, and between 2008 and 2018 was the offices for the Top Gear television production team and the Top Gear magazine team.[18] They moved into the main BBC Studios offices in Broadcast Centre in 2018. The One Show studio was located in the Energy Centre from 2007 to 2013 before moving to the newly built Peel Wing of Broadcasting House.[19][20][21]

In March 2019, BBC Research & Development moved into the Lighthouse building, having vacated Centre House on Wood Lane.[22]

A new building, Gateway Central, was constructed in 2022 and will be the headquarters of L'Oréal.[23]