We learnt last month that Delancey, the new owners of the development site on New Kent Road adjacent to Elephant Road, are dropping the mostly mocked name for the development of Tribeca Square they inherited from Oakmayne (because we're not in New York, because there's no canal we're below, and because it's a square not a triangle...)
But what should it be called instead? Perhaps we could circulate a few suggestions here and see if any bubble up to the branding committee or whoever decide these things. It strikes me there's a name needed for both the high rise accommodation with the cinema and supermarket in it as well as the large 'market square' to its south. Here's a start, some more sensible than others, I'll leave out the rationale for another time:
Trocadero Towers
The Trox
Tarn Towers
Heygate Heights
Volvo Estate
One The Castle
One The Rabbits
Colley Court
The Leybourne
New Kent Central Heights
Trocadero Plaza
The Quadrado
Faraday Square
Rabbits Square
John Square
Hughes Square
Whatever it ends up being called, Sam Keil's Bronze Elephant sculpture last seen keeling over at the far end of the Elephant Rd site near some tumbleweeds is back in the ring:
As Keil points in the brochure linked above with one of her sculptures installed in your new development you can 'charge what you like' for rents whereas without one your building is 'boring' and you can only 'charge medium rents'.
Anyhow, the letter from Jon Abbot in the above link shows that he, Fiona Colley and Eleanor Kelly are apparently 'very enthusiastic' about the Bronze Elephant standing on it's head.
One thing old Merlin Rouge (now greying) didn't understand is that the letter from Abbott is addressed to Christopher Allen, he of Oakmayne of yore, but now of his new Fisherking Ltd. Seeing as Fisherking website is full of Oakmayne's achievements locally we wonder both what degree of separation there is between both companies.
We also probably misunderstand this but Delancey has acquired the development but are Oakmayne are still involved?
Merlin Rouge - I like the sculpture, that's all news to me. From what I understand, simply as one of the public audience at Community Council on 1 February and as a reader of this website, Oakmayne Properties are now entirely out of the plot on New Kent Road, focusing instead on Eileen House redevelopment, so that letter from Jon Abbot might be more usefully sent to Mr Stafford Lancaster's team at Delancey - the new owners. Mr Lancaster attended Community Council and announced the dropping of the Tribeca Square branding as well as Delancey's intentions for the shopping centre, which they also bought in 2013 from St Modwen.
Any thoughts on names for the development? I know quite a few of us wrote to complain to Oakmayne and more recently Delancey about the Tribeca Square branding, but it'd be interesting for us locals to publicly discuss what could be better than that because you never know who might be reading who actually has some official influence over the choice of name.
Tribeca is indeed a ridiculous name, with no reference to the locality. Elephant this that or the other may confuse people if we have too many of them, but if 1 The Elephant is all we have, why not call it Elephant Towers or New Kent Towers/Place/~Centre...
Am sure Lend Lease will be happy with 'Elephant One' close by to their 'One The Elephant'. I'll wager that this will not be the final naming of Oakmayne Plaza / Tribeca Sq / Elephant One.
what'd also be brilliant would be if they could make little elephant keyrings which they could give out to new homeowners? i'd go and buy a flat just for this little bonus.
while we type, somebody somewhere in tooley st/consultants' company is getting paid to carefully collate all this under the 'overwhelming community support to whatever latest, harmful nonsense we just came up with'.
[quote pros]what'd also be brilliant would be if they could make little elephant keyrings which they could give out to new homeowners? i'd go and buy a flat just for this little bonus.
Lovely idea. Meanwhile, until someone makes more local merchandise you can now buy Elephant and Castle Urban Forest and Mobile Gardener inspired Liberty fabric locally made lavender pillows here:
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