The remarkable story of Canary Wharf's renaissance

It emptied out in the Covid years - but with a reinvention and the decline of WFH, Docklands is back in business says Jonathan Prynn

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Like the doomed canary of coalmine fame, London's second financial district had fallen off its perch.

In the tough post-pandemic recovery years of the early 2020s, the gleaming towers of Canary Wharf stood like abandoned steel and glass mausoleums as a succession of big-name occupiers announced they were to quit Docklands for the City.

First, in 2022, Magic Circle law firm Clifford Chance said the new era of hybrid working meant it did not need the acres of office space it leased for its increasingly working-from-home solicitors at the 10 Upper Bank Street skyscraper, and would move to smaller premises in the City.

Then the following year, in an even more symbolically damaging move, HSBC said it would shift its global headquarters out of the 45-storey skyscraper at 8 Canada Square where its name was visible for miles around. Others moving out and decamping to the City included ratings agency Moody's and US bank State Street.

In Monty Python terms, London's biggest regeneration project, a 1980s Thatcherite dream of a financial services citadel rising from the ashes of derelict docklands, was if not yet stone dead, certainly pining for the fjords.

As recently as last September, the finances of a project that had already gone bust once - previous owners Olympia & York collapsed in 1992 - looked on shaky foundations when Canary Wharf Group bonds were downgraded deep into junk territory. But what a difference a year makes. Last week data from analysts CoStar showed just how far Canary Wharf has come in a remarkable revival that has slipped largely under the radar.

Tenants have flocked back to a district that once looked in terminal decline. This year is set to be the strongest for office leasing for a decade, with 800,000 sq ft forecast to be signed by the end of the year. The vacancy rate in CWG office space is now down to just six per cent.