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Profile
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And maybe one day later in my life, I’ll be able to drive by and say, ‘look at how the trees have matured’.”
Butcher considers the UK’s Council for Protection of Rural England has “got its wires crossed” in that the policy in Germany and Holland, for example, stipulating low density by law, makes land less valuable and the cost of homes lower.
“IntheUKweseemtowanttodothe opposite forcing more properties per acre, which means you get less vegetation and nature in a development, because they don’t want to cut up a field that is next door. The result is that you end up with an over- concreted development and an area outside of it with miles and miles of fields.”
£125m more development
Butcher recently introduced to OV his first green roof on the 2-storey Trinity House office, already described as “the first nearly carbon neutral Gibraltar building”. Ocean Spa Plaza (OSP), one of his next two OV tower developments, has green walls
pioneering in Gibraltar vertical garden sustainable technology to create “an envelope of oxygen-emitting and carbon dioxide absorbing foliage”, as well as having a green roof. That idea “is very popular in Asia and if I had my time over again I’d add even more green”. OSP and Imperial Ocean Plaza will add 245 further apartments in 2017 and all were sold off-plan within days of being released.
Also still to come at OV are 106 short-term rental units on stilts, along with new super-yacht berths, bringing the total additional investment to circa £80m, in addition to £45m for a 16,260m2 Gibraltar World Trade Centre (WTC) office development due for completion next summer.
The original OV development concept
covered 14,400m2 of waterfront; when his extensions and new projects are complete, he will have added more than 31⁄2 times to the land area, in addition to having a hefty 77,262m2 of marine area.
Butcher realised some US assets when he was offered nearly three times what he had paid, and this helped to get the WTC development off the ground to “act like a beacon for Gibraltar in the business world”. So far, 27 firms have committed to two-thirds of the 7-storey building and, he says, “other [firms] - including one already in 26 other WTCs - are in the process of gaining approval from their boards”.
Apart from the worldwide charisma of WTCs and their members’ wide-ranging business connections, providing a tenant- centric, ‘healthy office’ environment is key. “We avoid in the building design formalde- hyde donors and when complete, clean the air continuously”, eliminating the possibility of ‘sick building syndrome’, where workers get headaches or become slouchy, he maintains.
In 2002, Fairhomes promised 270 full-time equivalent new jobs at OV; today, more than 400 new jobs are there, even before the expected 1,700 WTC workers arrive!
Lacking rental homes
The main issue for Butcher is the lack of residential rental property for the staff of incomingWTCfirms. “Wegooutsideofthe territory and act as a recruiting sergeant for Gibraltar, and those people require rental homes, at least at the outset”, whereas “certain office blocks here are sold off-plan to speculators, so they simply sit there and wait for someone to knock on their door and rent it – and that is almost certainly going to be a local business relocating”. He hopes renters will find space in the next two OV apartment blocks.
Butcher is not moving to “my dream home” in Gibraltar’s South District – the 7- bedroom New Aloes built for his family, including his two children, Gregory (13) and Lauren (7). At an enormous 9,526 sqft, the grand villa won ‘Best Property Single Unit – World’ in last year’s International Property Awards, but is now for sale at £10.9m!
He lives on the job at Ocean Village with its seven pools and 11 jacuzzis and explains: “Saying to my children that we are moving to this great place – wonderful for me - but by the way, your friends won’t be anywhere nearby, wasn’t popular.”
Having been resident on The Rock for
A challenge: planting 5,500+ trees at Ocean Village
environmental card resurfaces: “If I had my choice to build a new area, it would be a village with many trees. I am a great supporter of Prince Charles’ Urban Villages concept.”
Butcher emphasises: “It’s absolutely where the future should be, where you have a community in close proximity with each other, using traditional materials (if you can) and a lot of trees - that’s the over-riding priority.”
It’s a paradigm applied to Ocean Village (OV), where since taking over Sheppard’s Boatyard and a strip of waterfront land in 2003, he has so far built 315 apartments in three striking blue glass-fronted 16-17 storey towers, 13 retail outlets, 12 bars and restaurants and created a cobbled marina with 100 berths.
By 2006, Butcher’s OV vision had expanded to include the adjacent Marina Bay, a late-70’s development of offices, apartments, and 209 boat moorings. A 4-storey Leisure Island block on land
reclaimed in 2009 housing 6,500m2 in offices and a casino, with the world’s first 5-star lux- ury yacht hotel, (the 7-storey Sunborn Hotel) moored alongside, completes today’s OV.
“Planting trees is a challenge and I know there is not universal agreement over this and some people have different views to me” – four local residents have vocally opposed the concept, one threatening legal action! “I have introduced to Ocean Village over 5,500 trees and large shrubs – small and large trees – we put many on roofs and on top of the 35,000 sqft car park, which is full of vegetation.” Now he is planning “very large trees”.
Citing his US property lots, he would “love to develop [homes] and place a thick set of trees around; where we have, say, 100 lots next to each other, we would turn that into a beautiful tree-adorned, vibrant community.
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